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PARISIAI SI&HTS 



AND 



FREICH PRIICIPLES, 



SEEN THROUGH 



AMERICAN SPECTACLES. 



BY 



I 



-■y 



JAMES JACKSON JARVES. 



SECOND SERIES. 





NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1855. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thou- 
sand eight hundred and fifty-five, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Clerk's Oflfice for the Southern District of New York. 



-Dq::/ 



e ■ 

.0 35 



PREFACE. 



" Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitse." 

Of volume first, a reviewer kindly said, ''It is not half 
long enough, and we hope the author, in due time, will 
give us more of the same sort." Having laid this flatter- 
ing unction to my — pen, for further particulars, discrimi- 
nating critic, inquire WITHIN. We would add, however, 
that a number of the chapters have already appeared at 
various intervals in Harper's Magazine, while all were 
written some years back. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS 



AND 



FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



CHAPTER I. 

FRENCH ARISTOCRACY VS. AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 

All men are born free and equal, says the American Con- 
stitution. All men are born in the bondage of sin, says high- 
er and truer authority. From that bondage spring those in- 
equalities of life, which no axiom of politics can make level, 
or theory of philosophy make straight. It is useless to deny 
this truth. Nature proclaims it in every form, animate and 
inanimate. What contrast can be greater than between the 
humble but useful carbon and the brilliant and imperishable 
diamond ! Yet both are of the same material. Every flow- 
er, shrub, and tree differs from its neighbor, each betraying 
some peculiar excellence, or the effects of disease or decay, 
the sad heritage of man's fall from freedom and equality. 
The brute kingdom alike shares man's destiny. Some ani- 
mals there are born to beauty, health, and vigor ; others to 
homeliness, infirmity, and suffering. The sole equality to 
man or beast is in the provision provided for entering or leav- 
ing this world, and the sole inheritage of indeprivable free- 
dom is in the common air all breathe, and the mother earth 

A 2 



10 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

on whicli all tread while living, and repose in when dead. 
Whatever may have been the condition of our race previous 
to Eve's unwise curiosity, it has since become one of kalei- 
jdoscopic inequality, with joy for the few and sorrow for the 
|many. The last owe her boundless gratitude that she stop- 
(iped half way, and did not complete her sin by eating of the 
'tree of life and compelling her descendants to live forever. 
In leaving the boon of death to humanity, we are in duty 
bound to forgive the fatal gift of knowledge. Yet, while hu- 
manity retains its corruptibility, this very inequality of natu- 
ral and acquired condition constitutes the basis of progress 
and happiness. We could no more endure a dead level of 
comfort or pleasure than universal and equalized misery. 
Without contrasts and variety, life would lose its compensa- 
tions. Consolation and stimulus both spring from diversities 
of fortune, and if there were no sorrow of mind, no pain of 
body, we should remain unacquainted with hope, and strangers 
to the gayety of health. Even heaven itself, the proffered cli- 
max of spiritual blessings, the eternal sea of joy and rest, 
destined to wash out all stains of earth, comes to us as a heav- 
en of ranks, and powers, and diversities of every grade of glo- 
ry and condition. We have the throng of the redeemed — the 
blood-washed and white-clad democracy of humanity, shout- 
ing hosannas at the foot of the throne, while angels and arch- 
angels, cherubim and seraphim, of every degree of power and 
eloquence, form the gradation of heaven's aristocracy, unit- 
ing in one harmonious choir of praise the souls of just m.en 
made perfect with those spirits who have had through eterni- 
ty their home in Paradise. The title of the heavenly Ruler is 
"Father" — his law, " love" — and his regent is cal-!||d " Lamb." 
Contrast this with the "imperial majesty" — the bulls, ukases, 
codes, bayonets, and executioners of earthly potentates, and 
credit the difference to the account of that spirit to whose 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 11 

envy and ambition even the happiness of heaven proved no 
antidote. 

Stop ! It is of earth only that I w^ould treat. The topic 
that gave rise to the above exordium is aristocracy — Ameri- 
can aristocracy — republicanized, democratized aristocracy. In 
this land of the "people" the word aristocracy is in every 
mouth, sometimes in tones of envy, rarely of hate, but al- 
WEijs of interest. What is this subtle something, that every 
one sees, yet none can define — this alvi^ays sought, yet al- 
ways vilified distinction — ever pursued and never grasped 1 
Like an ignis fatuus, it dances its mocking light over the 
length and breadth of our land, oftenest seen and chased in 
the morasses of ignorance and prejudice, equally admired and 
abused, and not a little girt around by a superstitious dread, 
as natural as that entertained for its prototype, which many 
consider to be nothing less than a wandering spirit burning 
blue with anguish. 

A democrat is a com.mon noun ; as easily understood in its 
length and breadth, depth and height, solid contents and su- 
perficial area, as any other son of a woman. He is one of the 
people. He believes in himself, and rightly, as a ruler, and a 
maker of rulers — as one of God's anointed. He extends his 
faith to every man not a "nigger." His freedom and equal- 
ity consist in shaking up in the big sieve of politics blue spir- 
its, white and gray. The adroit and able rise to the top and 
rule ; the indifferent or weak sink to the bottom and are 
ruled. All have their turn, and democracy rejoices in health- 
ful fruit over the length and breadth of its wide-spreading 
domain. Now, as each citizen of these United States is one 
of the people, and as the people rule themselves theoretically 
and practically, whence are our aristocrats ? If we have such 
a class, they must have sprung from democrats — the decayed 
fruit of a healthful stock. 



12 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

But it is no easy matter to put one's finger on an aristocrat 
in this country — at least, such is my experience. I have sought 
diligently so to do, but the nimble ilea disappears not more 
rapidly than does one of this class when you think you have 
him. There is no difficulty in defining an aristocrat cast in 
the olden Grecian or Roman mould. The lords of Athens 
could never have been confounded vi^ith their white slaves. 
To be a citizen of Minerva's city was to be a nobleman, an 
aristocrat by birth and profession, as all men are born dem.- 
ocrats with us. Lycurgus divided his community into two 
classes : the helots or workers, the democracy of Lacedsemon ; 
and the citizens or fighters, to whom were reserved all honors 
and emoluments. The lordly patricians of republican Rome 
farmed out the world for their individual profit, while the 
plebeian multitude alternately fought for and were fed by 
them. There is no mistaking the class that produced an Al- 
cibiades, Pericles, Tarquin, Crassus, or Sylla for the common 
clay of their epochs. They stood out from the mass in as 
distinct relief in power, wealth, intellect, lust, and ambition, 
as did Milton's Satan from the hosts of hell. They were aris- 
tocrats, conspicuous in talent, energy, or crime. Men who 
could sup like Lucullus, feed their lampreys on human flesh, 
drink dissolved pearls, or, like Bestia, find amusement in stran- 
gling wives while asleep, buy an empire or slaughter their fel- 
low-citizens by scores to make a Roman holiday, would find 
small compensation for the deprivation of their privileges in 
the law-respecting and God-fearing lives of our aristocratic 
John Smiths and Richard Does. The ruder recreations of 
their craft in the Middle Ages, butchering and plundering trav- 
elers — when not occupied in wassail, or breaking each other's 
heads — would be too vulgar for the later Roman, accustomed 
to Asiatic luxury and Sybaritic indulgence ; while even he, 
perhaps, would have scorned the effeminacy of the French no- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 13 

blesse of Louis XV., who, when visiting their country estates, 
kept the democracy up all night beating the neighboring ponds 
to prevent the croaking of frogs from disturbing their slumbers. 

In using the words democrat and aristocrat, I employ them 
rather in their social than political signification. Aristocracy, 
as a form of government, is as obsolete in the United States 
as is true Christianity at Rome or democracy in Russia. In- 
deed, there is hope for the revival of the people's reign and 
religion in these countries, but none whatever for the hered- 
itary rule of the favored few in America. Aristocracy, as a 
political system, is there more securely buried under the weight 
of state constitutions and popular intelligence, than if it had 
all Egypt's pyramids on its body, or the guillotine of 1793 to 
" off with its head." If it exist at all, it is in an intangible, 
fluctuating social shape, better defined as a sliding scale of 
gentility, without boundaries of caste, and only to be detected 
in the seeker's imagination by its greater or less distance from 
his, or, more commonly, her — as females oftenest sit in judg- 
ment on this tribunal — standard of domestic life. 

Yet how often and how strangely do we hear this much- 
abused word used ! In politics it is made a local war-cry, stim- 
ulating prejudice and ignorance against property and refine- 
ment, creating phantoms of inequality where none exist save 
those created and blessed by God himself — the successful is- 
sues of probity, intelligence, or enterprise, the very rewards 
free to all who labor in earnest, and for which none other land 
but this proffers a clear field. Every party must, however, 
parade its Guy Fawkes, and exercise its lungs in shouting 
stratagems and treasons. Like gunpowder in salutes, it serves 
to make a temporary noise and smoke, but the atmosphere soon 
clears, and leaves the prospect as bright as ever. 

In Russia and England of this century we see represent- 
ed the two phases of aristocracy as modified by Christianity, 



14 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

which have respectively descended from Rome and Athens. 
In Russia, serfage in its lowest and most laborious forms, sep- 
arated by the impassable gulfs of work and non-work, form no- 
bility. Here the mass, under stripes and abuse, transmute the 
sweat of their brows into gold, that the few may bask in the 
sunshine of lordly magnificence. Born to masters, they know 
no higher destiny, and repay in servility and hypocrisy the 
tyranny and selfishness of their owners. It is aristocracy in 
its simplest, rudest, grandest form, alternately dazzling and dis- 
gusting in its extremes, because it knov/s no medium. 

In Great Britain it is no less a portion of the state, and in- 
corporated with the religion of the land. England's rule is 
aristocratic, but it is the best development of aristocracy of 
which human nature is capable. Extremes of social position 
as great as those of Russia are to be found in England, but 
education and intelligence have fixed limits to power. The 
same system which has developed liberty in England and given 
birth to democracy in America, has produced a race of high- 
minded, large-hearted men and statesmen, strong in integrity 
and patriotism, and gifted with more than Grecian eloquence 
and learning. England has given birth to aristocrats of whom 
humanity has reason to be proud — aristocrats by education and 
personal interest, but men from the higher motives of religion 
and humanity. However much we are compelled to admire 
the results of rank, wealth, refinement, and education concen- 
trated upon a few, like the diamond polished by its own dust, 
yet the system that perpetuates and makes hereditary these 
distinctions is none the less to be deplored. The government 
is best which, like that of the United States, or, more proper- 
ly, of those states in which slavery is excluded, leaves human 
enterprise untrammeled by invidious privileges and uncor- 
rupted by inalienable luxury. All that any government can 
do is to make equal laws, and thus render all men equal in 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 15 



rights, and leave them free under those laws to attain such 
public and social distinctions as nature and education qualify 
them for. This is the case in this country, and it is all its 
Constitution means to assert or confirm when it says all men 
are born free and equal. Thence it follows that aristocracy 
among us as a system has no more soil for growth than had 
the seed sown upon the rock. The sun of democracy withers 
it in its incipient budding. 

What, then, is this aristocracy, that is in every young miss's 
mouth and in most older heads ? I hear of it alike in the 
country and the city ; at the mechanic's bench and the mer- 
chant's desk ; in the retreat of learning and the focus of fash- 
ion. All claim it in their hearts and repudiate it with their 
tongues Each enviously attributes it to a neighbor, and 
shrinks from it himself as a plague-spot ; yet it is evident all 
consider it, like faith in religion, the great and desired social 
good, but valuable in proportion to its scarcity. Whence this 
weakness and inconsistency, for such it would at first seem ? 
It is as much an element of our social fabric as is universal 
suffrage of our political, and, chameleon-like as it may appear, 
foolish as it may at times display itself, it is at the bottom a 
civilizing and refining ingredient. The inconsistency of si- 
multaneous desire and repudiation results from a necessary 
weakness of democratic character. The individual grows up 
in subservience to the mass. Its opinions and prejudices are 
alternately his law and his bugbear. He loses sight of the 
important fact that, because he has yielded his political guid- 
ance to the care of the community, it does not follow that his 
social independence is lost also. The political warning cry 
of aristocracy rings frightfully in his ears, yet his heart 
yearns after what he believes to be its flesh-pots. The Amer- 
ican citizen is too recent a creature to be wholly freed from 
the infirmities and vices of the political systems of the Old 



16 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

World from which he sprung, yet he is rapidly casting his 
slough. This very feeling and desire in regard to aristocracy 
I quote in evidence of the truth of my remark. In one class 
of society, or more properly coterie, I am told such a person 
who moves in another is considered aristocratic. Elsewhere 
I hear the same asserted of my last informant, and so on 
through every gradation in the social ladder. No one points 
out a class as aristocratic , it is only the individual, and he 
only is aristocratic as he differs in his style of living or per- 
sonal manners from his neighbor. Thus aristocracy in the 
United States resolves itself simply into this fact : A, as a 
laborer, mechanic, merchant, or professional man, has made 
more money than B, and consequently spends more, lives bet- 
ter, receives more of the perquisites of cash ; hence, in the 
standard of B's household, A's is aristocratic. C has been 
better educated, more well-bred, has traveled, and in other 
ways more improved his- m.ind and manners than D, whose 
opportunities have been fewer. C thus becomes an aristo- 
crat to D, in the proportion of his greater refinement. E is 
more learned and aristocratic than F, and so on these changes 
could be rung through the whole social chime. There is 
nothing distinctive, invidious, or hereditary in this. It is 
the legitimate offspring of democracy, and, as such, should be 
cherished as the true refiner of society. Talent, wealth, and 
worth, none of which can be created and kept without labor, 
become thus the orders, the Stars and Garters, the Holy Fleece 
and Golden Crosses of American society. They constitute 
the only true Legion of Honor, the true insignia of which are 
known and worn in the hearts of the people. 

The craving for this aristocracy should be cherished as a 
powerful auxiliary in refining and polishing society. Individ- 
uals should discard the false meaning attached to the word 
in the United States, and if, in their heads as it really does, 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 17 

the word aristocracy implies but a superior standard of man- 
ners, education, or position to their own, strive for it ; not 
with the feeling that Haman viewed Mordecai, but with the 
consciousness of self-respect and desire of improvement, the 
birthright of every American, which, if properly sustained, 
makes him at once a fit companion for princes, and a bright 
and shining example of the virtue of democratic institutions 
in forming a man. Such is the character of the only inter- 
vention in the afiairs of their fellow-men worthy of the genius 
of American citizens. 

This definition of aristocracy will not accord with the views 
of those who fancy that greatness and goodness in one gen- 
eration continues greatness and goodness in the next, irre- 
spective of individual worth or ability. ■ It is true that repu- 
tation, like sin, is visited upon the third and fourth generation, 
while the only fame or consideration worth possessing goes 
not beyond its legitimate founder. Besides, the deeds which 
in the Middle Ages originated many a noble family, would in 
this have consigned the doers to state penitentiaries. In but 
few instances does it repay a rightly-constructed mind to root 
up the genealogical tree. The Bourbons descended from butch- 
ers, and the Plantagenets have descended into butchers, hon- 
estly earning their bread in butchering brutes in lieu of win- 
ning glory by butchering men. The lordly Montmorencis had 
no better origin than that of a robber chief, a French Rob Roy, 
ennobled because too troublesome and powerful to be subdued ; 
and many of England's best estates, with their titles, are but 
the plunder of religious houses by Henry VIIL, or the prizes 
awarded unblushing vice by the "merry monarch." Great 
deeds create great names, but great names are no warrant for 
great deeds. Titled greatness begets courtly corruption, which 
in the end precipitates its possessors as far below the moral 
level of society as their rank was above its general grade. 



18 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

The noblesse of Louis XV. are an apt illustration of this truth. 
Though personally brave when impelled by vanity, and liberal 
when pride was aroused, yet they were steeped to the heart's 
core in profligate egotism. Martyrs, if need be, to sustain in- 
dividual crime or licentiousness, when the hour of danger to 
Louis XVL arrived, they basely fled, and left the monarch to 
be slaughtered by the masses whose fury their shameless vices 
had aroused. Madame du Barri, who knew them well, says, 
the greatest lords sought with eagerness the friendship of Le- 
bel, who m.inistered to the profligacy of Louis XY. They all 
had a wife, sister, or daughter ambitious for the post of favorite 
sultana. Thus the destinies of France were at the mercy of 
a valet. The Duke de E^ichelieu, in giving her advice upon 
her succeeding the Pompadour, after exhibiting in himself in- 
conceivable baseness, concluded by saying, " Take care ; you 
are too good, too frank. Distrust every body ; we are all here 
hypocrites ;" and the distrust, hypocrisy, and falsehood so cul- 
tivated by the court, has left its traces to this day deep in the 
general character of the people. " It was impossible to doubt 
of my favor," continues Madame du Barri, " when I saw noble 
persons present themselves to fill servile employments about 
me." Yet these noble persons were the aristocracy of France, 
and Madame du Barri a young prostitute, but a few days be- 
fore transported from a low haunt to the palace of Versailles. 
Yet to such a depth of degradation had this court fallen, that 
the project of her formal presentation involved more nego- 
tiations and intrigue than did at a later period the declaration 
of war with England and the alliance with the then struggling 
colonies of America. 

Louis XV. sketched the likeness of his nobility with one 
stroke when he remarked, " One never wounds one here when 
they make a present," and La Marechale de Mirepoix as hap- 
pily illustrated his, when she declared that " he drew with- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 19 



out scruple upon the public treasure of France the value of 
twofold its revenue, but he would have made two parts of a 
crown out of his own private purse." 

The favorite literature of this " well-beloved king" of France 
was " Les Dons de Comus" and " La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise," 
the contents of which books he knew by heart. His chief van- 
ity was in being considered an accomplished cook, to obtain 
the reputation of which he not only discoursed learnedly upon 
all topics connected with the kitchen, but undertook at times 
to display the practical proficiency of his own royal hands. 
At one of his suppers, at which were present sundry " gour- 
mets" of the first water, an omelette of his manufacture was 
served. It was frightfully burned, for, as the narrator naive- 
ly remarks, kings in general do not make good cooks. They 
lack attention and patience. All the guests viewed it with 
consternation. Nevertheless, Louis XV. impartially distrib- 
uted a part to each, and took his own, saying, " It is a little 
burned, but still it is eatable." This execrable omelette was 
devoured and praised, for, as says one of their number, the 
stomachs of courtiers are equally as devoted to their prince as 
their hearts. 

An amusing, if not instructive narrative might be drawn up 
from the follies and vices of the aristocracy of this reign, but 
one could not do this without disclosing orgies and crimes in 
which appear the noblest names of France, little in accordance 
with the manners and tastes of the present age. It is better 
that their mantle of infamy should be undisturbed. To raise it 
in the least would be to give vent to foul odors. Yet for those 
whose secret yearnings are for aristocratic rank, and who are 
believers in the difierent degrees of fineness of the human 
porcelain, I would extract from original sketches a picture of 
patrician pride and dignity that can not fail to enchant them. 
The lady in question was no parvenu noble. She was the 



20 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

incarnation of the spirit of rank, an aristocrat to her very mar- 
row ; not an embodiment of vulgar pride or weaker vanity^ 
but a high-minded, lofty-hearted woman, gifted with rare wit 
and intelligence, and learned in all the accomplishments of 
her day. Her day was not a brief one, for she connected in 
her own life the empires of Louis XI Y. and Napoleon. By 
both these monarchs were her hands respectfully kissed ; the 
former when she was but eleven years of age, and the latter 
in her ninety-eighth year. The Richelieus and Talleyrands 
were to her but modern upstarts. She says of the latter fam- 
ily, with a tincture of scorn, that they were never able to make 
their proofs of nobility date back farther than 1460. The La 
Fayettes, as philosophers and Republicans, met with no more 
favor. She looked back upon a long line of grim, crusading 
warriors, to the days of the saintly Louis, as her ancestors, in- 
termingling with barons, marshals, embassadors, and dignita- 
ries of Church and state, so that, through courtly favor and 
well-negotiated marriages, her kin acknowledged the right of 
precedence to but few in the kingdom. A firm believer in " old 
families," her mind was stored with the genealogical history 
of every noble house of Europe. She was a living encyclope- 
dia of rank, a sort of Burke's Peerage in the most delightful 
of editions, and a store-house of facts and anecdotes connect- 
ed with the noblesse of France. The cumbersome etiquette 
of Versailles was to her a faith. She believed in high birth 
and hereditary monarchy as instituted of heaven ; the legiti- 
mate king was to her the Lord's anointed, and any infraction 
of the ceremonies of rank were sins that required peculiar ex- 
piation. Neither her philosophy nor history always extended 
back to the origin of old families. She was content that they 
had been illustrious for centuries, had furnished the proofs of 
nobility previous to 1399, been admitted to the honors of the 
Louvre, wore the blue cord or red heel, enjoyed the right to 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 21 

enter the carriages of the king or to follow him to the hunt. 
Each individual noble was as accurately classed by her in po- 
sition, honors, and rights, the boundaries of which were as 
impassable as the northern passage, as if he or she were a nu- 
mismatic specimen, arranged according to date in a cabinet. 
The privileges of caste were no less sacred in her eyes than 
the Ten Commandments. With all this devotion to rank, the 
Marquise de Crequy was no less devout in her religious creed, 
in which submission to the Roman Catholic Church figured as 
conspicuously as submission to her sovereign. 

If any of my lady readers are disposed to play the courtly 
aristocrat, the clippings which I shall take from her life will 
form a better standard of what is to be expected in that char- 
acter than any other biography I am acquainted with. She 
is a model in this respect. If the atmosphere of America be 
blighting to this species of social fruit, her real virtues are 
worthy every where of imitation and respect. Weaknesses 
she undoubtedly had, but they were the exhalations of her 
aristocratic faith and education. Her very prejudices and ha- 
treds flow so naturally and charmingly from her loyalty, and 
the proud but quiet consciousness of what, in her eyes, was 
the elixir of existence — a distinguished descent, that we should 
consider it as sacrilegious to disturb them as to shake the faith 
of a departing Christian. 

The first visit she made to her grandmother is worth relat- 
ing in her own words, as illustrating the style of the time. 
This relative, whose names and titles we have not the pa- 
tience to inflict upon our readers, even if they possessed the 
patience to read them, " etait etablie sur son estrade et son 
lit entre quatre colonnes dorees, sous un dais le plus riche et 
le plus empanache, dont la balustrade etait fermee. Sa cor- 
nette et sa hongreline de dentelle etaient garnies avec des 
bouffettes de satin gris de perle, et du reste elle etait sous un 



22 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



couvre-pieds d'une seule piece en point de Yenise. Je suis 
persuadee que la garniture de ses draps, valait au moins qua- 
rantes mille ecus. 

"^A peine etions-nous assisses, qu'on entendit ouvrir les deux 
battans de toutes les portes de Tenfilade avee un fracas incon- 
cevable, et que nous viraes apparaitre une petite figure qu'on 
apportait sur un grand fauteuil de velours vert galonne d'ar- 
gent. C'etait une sorte d'image enlumine'e, grimagaute etpein- 
turluree comme un joujou de Nuremberg, avec la bouche en 
ccEur et deux petits yeux languissans. Cette etrange figure 
etait iiabillee d'une etoffe d 'argent brodee en chenille verte, et, 
de plus, elle avait un gros bouquet de verveine a la main. Le 
fauteuil etait porte par quatre geans, liabilles en valets de 
pied ; et etait environne par cinq ou six petits pages, les plus 
jolis du m.onde, et c'etait visiblem.ent des enfans de bonne 
maison, car ils avaient tous la croix de Malte ou celle de Saint 
Lazare. Un de ces pages etait charge d'un coussin pour 
mettre sous les pieds (toujours vert et argent) ; un autre por- 
tait une grosse gerbe de verveine et de rhue verte, afin de pu- 
rifier I'air." This morning caller was the Duke de Grevres. 

The following description of a carriage of that epoch, pre- 
sented by a lover to his mistress, will not be without interest 
to those whose aristocracy consists in display. The body of 
the carriage was of deep gilt, ornamented with the most brill- 
iant and finest arabesque paintings, in various colors. On the 
panels were cupids forming ciphers in garlands of flowers, 
by the best artists. The glasses were protected by a fine grat- 
ing of gilt bronze, chased in mauresque, ornamented with gold- 
en knots upon each of the intervening spaces. The entire in- 
terior was lined with bags filled with herbs of the most deli- 
cate perfume. The cushions were covered with pearl satin, 
richly embroidered with wild flowers in their natural colors, 
beautifully entwined, and creeping upon a golden trellis, also 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 23 

embroidered upon the satin. The two seats were also stuffed 
with perfumed herbs and covered with green satin, embroi- 
dered with flowers and leaves of deeper tints. The foot-car- 
pet was made of the feathers of rare tropical birds, sparkling 
with gold and a thousand bright colors. This carpet alone 
cost 36,000 francs. 

The body of the coach was placed upon a large golden shell, 
the interior of which was inlaid with mother of pearl so skill- 
fully as to appear but one piece. This shell was supported 
by groups of charming fairies and young Tritons, cast in bronze 
with wonderful spirit, and richly gilt. The wheels were fluted 
and gilt, and the spokes were of solid silver, " which," says 
Madame de Crequy, " appeared the least thing of all, in the 
midst of the other magnificence. The harness was loaded 
with gold, and the horses shod with silver. 

Unfortunately for my fair American readers, to whom I 
would present for imitation the very pearl of aristocracy, Mad- 
ame de Crequy had a supreme contempt for all wealth or fash- 
ion that savored of commerce. Her patent of nobility lay 
wholly in the sword, and she has but little patience and less 
forgiveness for even her eminent countrymen of the " haute 
noblesse" who forsook the profession of that weapon for the 
learned duties of the robe. Alas for the degeneracy of our 
race ! He who slaughters and sells most pork is nigher a for- 
tune and position than he who fights. Warriors are at a dis- 
count ; their occupation of fighting " on their own hook" is 
gone. Commerce has extinguished chivalry. The success- 
ful merchant is honored, but knight-errantry ridiculed. By 
Madame de Crequy's aristocratic code, commerce, once admit- 
ted into an old family, sullied forever the pure blood of no- 
ble descent. The more numerous the quarterings, the deeper 
the stain upon the escutcheon. The " damn'd spot'' could 
neither wear nor wash out. Her indi^-nation becomes too 



24 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

strong for words at a proposition made by M. de Saint Simon 
to take an interest in a manufactory of pottery established by 
the Duke de Liancourt. In relating it to her grandson, she 
simply says, " You will rightly think that I did not take the 
trouble to reply to him. Figure to yourself your grandmother, 
Madame de Froulay-Tesse-Beaumannoir et Lavardin, a man- 
ufacturer of pitchers, pipes, and pots for sale." It would, in- 
deed, have been a trying name for a firm's sign or signature. 
Riches, with her, were a good thing to sustain rank, but they 
were very far from conferring consideration. And to her credit 
be it said, though long-conferred nobility covered a multitude 
of sins, yet her standard of individual character was high. JSTo- 
bility of character she rightly considered should always accom- 
pany nobility of descent. Her ideas in regard to the common 
topic of our age are worth recording. She writes to her grand- 
son: "Listen to the recital of a disaster that will make you 
grow pale. The Prince de Guemenee, head of the house of 
Rohan-Rohan, possessed a rent of not less than two millions. 
He kept up a style proper to such a fortune, without being ex- 
travagant or possessing any ruinous tastes. It was sometimes 
said that he borrowed money on his annuities, but at court 
and in the fashionable world no one took notice of such speech- 
es. As of a man of fashion or woman of quality, when it was 
said, he is rich, she is poor, or they are comfortable, nothing more 
was thought of it, and, provided they could appear respecta- 
bly, nothing further was required. Before the Revolution of 
1793 and the miseries of the emigration, just heaven and God 
of St. Louis ! if we had met gentlemen who were agitated 
about their rents, or showed themselves occupied in matters 
of money, they would have been exiled to the "Rue Basse" 
or the Faubourg Poissonniere. The bankers, who lived and 
dreamed in ciphers, took care to talk no more on these mat- 
ters than we. The consideration for persons of fashion was 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 35 

regulated after the nobility of their birth and character, for 
rank, properly so called, does not always suffice. In every 
case, personal consideration was independent of wealth. I as- 
sure you that no one occupied themselves or spoke of the for- 
tunes of others, unless it was a question of marriage. Those 
who had no one to marry never listened. The Duchess of 
Grammont always said that she knew but three persons who 
spoke of money — the Duke of Chartres, M. Neckar, and Mad- 
ame Neckar. 

" It was soon whispered that the Prince of Guemenee was 
ruined." 

" ' What is that you say V 

"• ' It is a complete failure — so say my advocates.' 

" ' What does that signify ? What is a failure ? Explain 
yourself, you who talk with men of business, and follow the 
process of suits.' 

" ' It is a bankruptcy.' 

" ' Then he must have been in commerce. Only merchants 
become bankrupt ; and how could M, de Guemenee V 

" ' They say that his intendant has fled.' 

" ' Yery well ; let him take another. One never need want 
an intendant.' 

" ' It is true, but it creates great talk ; the Hotel of Soubise 
surrounded with a noisy crowd.' 

" ' It is very insolent !' 

" ' It is inconceivable !' " 

Such was the fashionable talk in regard to a deficit of 
34,000,000 francs, borrowed chiefly from the savings of work- 
people and persons of small incomes. As the creditors were 
not content to remain silent, they were at first considered by 
the circle of the prince as not possessing " common sense ;' 
but Madame de Crequy says that when it came to be under 
stood that so powerful a lord as M. de Guemenee had borrow 

B 



26 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



ed money that he could not honorably pay, as his estates were 
entailed, there resulted among the " haute noblesse" a sort of 
febrile oppression, intermingled with general indignation and 
great bitterness. 

His wife, Madame de Guemenee, was one of the last to be- 
come acquainted with his situation. When it finally reached 
her ears, she was indignant that so much should be made 
" de si peu de chose.'''' She went to her husband, and told him 
that she had resources. " At the end of twenty-four hours, 
with my diamonds, without mentioning plate, of which I have 
two chambers filled, I shall find more than enough to pay your 
rents, and the proof is, that they are now coming to count you 
12,000,000 on account of a rag of paper that I have had but 
the trouble to sign. They condemn you to reimburse your 
loans in place of paying the rents, and your estates are all en- 
tailed ; but they have always told me that I have more than 
50,000,000 of property entirely free. Why did not you and 
your men of business remember this ? But do not talk about 
those miserable wretches that have so annoyed you. In mar- 
rying, my fortune naturally became at your orders. You are 
the eldest of the house of Rohan, my prince, and, if you were 
not my husband, I would not leave you in this embarrassment. 
Permit me to tell you that, in this affair, your conduct has been 
inconceivably ridiculous." 

With all her partiality for the system of which she was her- 
self so worthy a representative, Madame de Crequy testifies 
that it perished by its own inherent vices. She says Bona- 
parte wished to call about him the high nobility, who never 
would have been of any service to him. " The greater part 
of the great lords had been educated without piety, and had 
commenced to live too young. Incapable of exercising the 
authority of rank, they were of races enervated by luxury, 
weakened in intelligence, and spoiled by domination. Why 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 27 

did not the great nobility furnish a man to put down the Rev- 
olution ? Why, among the nobles that distinguished them- 
selves for devotion and capacity, was there not found a single 
great lord ? Why v^^as it that, among all the great lords that 
figured in the Revolution, there v^ere only to be remarked dis- 
loyalty and want of intelligence ?" The Bishop of Autun was 
her bete noir in chief. Of him she writes, " This abominable 
bishop is in my eyes a calamity for the country, an ulcer in the 
heart of the Church, a shameful sore. I shall never have the 
cowardice to speak to him, whatever may arrive. I shall al- 
ways blush in him for the nobility of France, and in him have 
a horror of myself. I truly believe that I should prefer to 
mount the scaffold than to enter his house to sit beside him." 
She would have the nobility true to what she considered their 
high calling ; for " a prince," referring to the Duke of Orleans, 
" who swims in two waters, who smiles upon the people, and 
who seems inclined to the side of dem^ocracy, appears to me 
an insupportable man," With all this devotion to her caste, 
she did not hesitate to frown upon vice, even in a king, though 
it must be confessed that the thermometer of her severity was 
as much depressed at the mesalliance as the crime. Her heart 
was born in its right place, and it is curious to observe the oc- 
casional effect of an artificial education on her naturally cor- 
rect judgment. A mistress of rank was a la mode, but to stoop 
to a grisette was unpardonable. Madame de Pompadour could 
be overlooked, but the presence of Madame du Barri at Ver- 
sailles was only to be expiated by the absence of Madame de 
Crequy. She was right, only her conscience did not extend 
sufficiently far. She says that she ceased to go to court in 1771, 
and she never saw Madame du Barri but once, at a review at 
Pablons. Madame de Mirepoix — who,by-the-way, was a char- 
acter that it would be injustice even to a Du Barri to compare 
her to, but she was a " marechale" — was in the same coach, and 



38 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

at the left of this beautiful lady. " I asked who this unknown 
princess could be that treated so familiarly the widov/ of a 
Prince of Lorraine and a Marshal of France. The Yiscount de 
Laval replied, as if it were nothing, ' It is Madame the Count- 
ess du-Barri,' for he had the charming delicacy and the ' cour- 
tisauerie'' to separate the article of the name, for a good exam- 
ple. I pulled the check-string, and, without replying to the 
viscount, ordered the coachman ' chez-moi.' " As for " la mare- 
chale," she cut her from that day henceforward. Yet to those 
she respected she practiced a courtesy as delicate as rare. To- 
ward Madame Brissac, whose name was " venerablement his- 
torique," she had so great consideration that she always apolo- 
gized when the etiquette of rank obliged her to place herself 
above her. 

The politeness of superiors was not always imitated by their 
dependents. Having occasion to engage a coachman, before 
accepting the situation he inquired, " I wish to know of mad- 
ame to whom raadame yields the way." " To every body — I 
yield to every body except in the streets and court-yards of 
Versailles." "How! does madame order her first coachman 
to yield the way in the streets of Paris to presidents V "Cer- 
tainly — without doubt." "But madame should not yield to 
bankers ; and madame knows very well, if the servants of a 
banker dispute the way with her coachman, he will strike 
them in the face with his whip." " Oh ! the bankers should 
know the liveries, and as for the rest, Mr. Coachman, I do not 
intend that, on the pavements of Paris, and for persons abso- 
lutely without consequence, my carriages should be upset and 
my horses ham-strung." " It is true, madame has but twelve 
horses ; and, besides, it is my custom only to yield the way to 
princes of the blood; so I shall not suit, madame?" It would 
scarcely be prudent, in the year 1852, to say that Louis Napo- 
leon and Uothschild were " personnages absolument sans con- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. £9 

sequence," albeit one is only a president and the other mere- 
ly a banker. 

Perhaps the two extremes of aristocracy have never been 
better represented than by Madame de Crequy and our Frank- 
lin : the former the embodiment of exalted titular rank, cra- 
dled in luxury, by nature refined, spirituelle, and sincere, by 
education versed in all the elegant and many of the solid ac- 
complishments of the day ; quick in repartee, keen in wit, 
and with all her prejudices a sensible aristocrat : the latter 
equally exalted in rank, the result of his individual merits and 
the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens ; earnest, hon- 
est, and intelligent, without education except such as his own 
exertions and experience had conferred upon him, despising 
ceremonies, and inflexible to his creed of ulititarianism, simple 
in dress and plain in speech : this representative of the peo- 
ple afforded the most striking contrast to the representative 
of the aristocracy. They met. Their greeting must have re- 
minded the spectators of Vulcan saluting Psyche. Happily for 
himself and our cause, Franklin arrived at Paris at an epoch 
when the old regime, with its cumbersome apparel, was fast 
becoming stale and effete. A novelty was a blessing. Frank- 
lin was a decided novelty. Revolutionary ideas had ceased to 
be such ; but a plain, honest, strong'^minded democrat was a 
new thing under the sun of Paris. If the Leviathan had stalk- 
ed into the Champs Elysees, it would not have created a great- 
er sensation. A feted lion he was instanter, and throusrh him 
and by him the prestige of rank in France received its death- 
wound. Franklin was the apostle of the people, without title, 
without wealth, without ancestry; as mechanic, merchant, phi- 
losopher, soldier, statesman, and diplomat, equally distinguish- 
ed in every sphere, the Titan of them all. No wonder that 
Louis XVL, Marie Antoinette, and women of quality like Mad- 
ame de Crequy, instinctively dreaded this man. Etiquette 



30 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

and policy forced the Bourbon and his queen to disguise their 
sentiments, but the latter lady did not hesitate to declare hers, 
although she met him but once, at a dinner, when the place 
of honor, next to Franklin, was reserved for her. She says 
that she did not address him a single word, because she did not 
know what to say to this " printer." He had on a brown coat, 
brown vest, breeches of the same color, and a cravat striped 
with red. " That which I saw the most remarkable in him was 
his mode of eating eggs. He emptied five or six into a gob- 
let, mingling butter, salt, pepper, and mustard, and thus made 
a ' joli ragout Philadelphique.' It is right also to tell you that 
he did not detach his food with a spoon, and that he cut with 
a knife the pieces of melon he wished to eat ; he also bit the 
asparagus in lieu of cutting the point with his knife upon the 
plate, and of eating it properly with his fork. You perceive 
it was the mode of a savage." 

Such were the aristrocrat's impressions of the dem.ocrat. 
Pity we have not the reverse of the picture. In lieu, however, 
she gives two other anecdotes worth relating. Madame Neck- 
ar invited Franklin and his grandson, aged four years, to meet 
Voltaire at dinner. She besought the sage of Ferney to be- 
stow his benediction upon the little American. Voltaire arose, 
and, placing his hands upon the head of the urchin, exclaim- 
ed, in the tone of a " diable enrhume," " Liberte, Tolerance 
ET Probite !" 

Among the salutations of etiquette, it was required to bow 
to the throne of France in passing before it, as is done by 
good Catholics of the present day before their altars. In ad- 
dition to this, however, equal reverence was demanded for 
the Cadenat of the king. Franklin, seeing the Cardinal de la 
Rochefoucault bow before this great gilt box, asked if it con- 
tained sacred relics. Upon being informed that it held the 
utensils of the table, he exclaimed, " Prodigious /" which my 
readers will doubtless cordiallv echo. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 31 

Madame de Crequy says she never had her hand upon the 
knocker of her own door but once, and then she did not know 
how to use it. It was the morning after the fearful catastrophe 
in the present Place de la Concorde, by which twelve hundred 
lives were lost on the occasion of the fete of the marriage of 
Marie Antionette. Madame de Crequy had remained all night 
in a ditch, into which she had been precipitated by the crowd, 
without injury. She was then near seventy years of age, and 
unable to get out in the dark without assistance. She heard 
the voices of the patrol, and at first thought of asking assist- 
ance, but was prevented by a sort of sentiment which she had 
not suspected was in her. " Old age is sometimes embar- 
rassed without being timid, and particularly when it is over- 
come with a feminine sentiment, that is, a sort of delicacy, or, 
if you like it better, of natural coquetry. It seemed to me that 
to those soldiers my apparition would give impertinent ideas ; 
for instance, that of an old sorceress issuing from the earth. I 
feared they would laugh at me when they saw my face, and it 
appeared benecth me to solicit succor at the price of money ; 
for, take away my name, titles, and fortune, and each one of 
those men would save, in preference to me, any clumsy, gross, 
but pretty-faced chamber-maid." So she remained quietly 
all night in that ditch amid the wounded and dead, scram- 
bling out at daybreak, and, for the first time probably, walking- 
unattended to her own hotel. 

Her memoirs are a wonderful example of the saying that a 
French woman never grows old, at least in mind. Bordering 
on a century, she is as witty, as fresh, and as malicious as at 
twenty. Nothing escapes her observation, and neither mem- 
ory nor any of her senses appear to have lost the vigor of 
youth. Not the least interesting portion of her life is that she 
spent in the prisons of Paris, where, scorning to emigrate, she 
was at last sent. She was apprehended under the charge of 



Z2 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

distributing forged assignats. They searched her person in 
the most odious and insolent manner, and at last thrust her 
into a cellar, in which there was neither seat of any kind nor 
even straw. They undertook to interrogate her, and asked if 
she was 93 years old. She was that ; and believing that death 
must, at all events, soon visit her in some other shape, if not 
by the guillotine, she determined not to open her lips. For 
once an old woman baffled the cunning and ferocity of that 
dread tribunal. Nothing could overcome her silence. They 
saw it was folly to threaten death to nearly fivescore years ; 
and finally, after grinding their teeth and shaking their fists 
at her in impotent rage, they cursed her for a deaf old aristo- 
crat, and left her, without food or bed, to pass the night as she 
best could on the damp floor of her dismal dungeon. 

On the second anniversary of the capture of the Bastile, she 
had been ordered to illuminate her hotel, but refused. Her 
aristocracy was so firm that, even in those days of terror, it 
inspired respect. Robespierre treated her with marked civil- 
ity, and defended her cause against a claimant for her proper- 
ty, who asserted himself to be the rightful heir. He was the 
son of a mechanic in the Rue St. Denis, or was supposed to be, 
and, after pressing his suit for some years, was guillotined as 
an aristocrat. 

The jailer had two young children, both of whom were sick 
with the small-pox. Madame de Crequy, fearing they would 
die, stole quietly into their room at night, and baptized them 
into the faith of the Holy Catholic Church, administering the 
rite without the consciousness even of its ♦recipients. Had 
she been detected, she would have been hurried promptly to 
execution. She says, in leaving the prison after the fall of 
Robespierre, she revealed the fact to their mother, that the 
poor children might know to whom they belonged in case God 
took their lives. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 33 



The scenes she describes of her prison life are replete with 
humor and pathos, at one time having for her companions 
Madames Roland and Josephine Beauharnais. The last of Au- 
gust, 1794, she was called upon to mount the fatal cart that 
conveyed the prisoners to the scaffold. Being delayed by some 
indispensable preparations, the driver cursed her for keeping 
him waiting, in the multiplicity of his epithets calling her a 
'■'• vieille calotinocrate-anstocrache.^^ The delay saved her life. 
The jailer came in and explained that it was another Cre'quy 
that was called. Mistakes in names were not uncommon, and 
seldom corrected before the tribunal. The full complement of 
heads was required, and it mattered little by what names 
they were known. 

She was soon after released, and, notwithstanding her suf- 
ferings, found herself rejuvenated twenty years, which she at- 
tributes to the severity of her abstinence, and particularly to 
the rigor of the cold, for no fires were allowed. Yet she adds, 
for all that, it was a frightful punishment. 

With a sentiment not uncommon to long captivity, she at 
first regretted her prison, her companions, and the fraternity 
of misfortune. Her friends were exiled, massacred, or fled. 
Her vast hotel was more dreary than her prison. Besides, one 
risked being slain in '94 in the heart of Paris. The massive 
gates, jailers, chains, and dogs of her prison were so man}?- 
pledges of security, which she now missed, and it was some 
time before she could reconcile herself to her desolate and 
cheerless grandeur. 

There were many touching episodes of that prison life ; oth- 
ers in which ludicrousness overpowered every other sentiment. 
Hearts there were that went cheerfully to the scaffold rather 
than avail themselves of an equivocation proffered to them by 
the humanity of a Fouquier Tinville — wives, unnamed in the 
fatal list, who triumphed over the resistance of jailers, and 

B2 



34 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



joyfully laid down their heads beside those of their condemned 
husbands. There were bitter quarrels between an Abbe' St. 
Simon and a provincial marquis, whom Madame de Cre'quy 
apostrophizes with " que Dieu confonde.''^ The two slept on the 
staircase, the marquis being several steps above the abbe- " It 
was often in the middle of the night that their disputes were 
the most violent/because the marquis would spit upon the head 
of the abbe, who did not wish to permit any such liberty." 

One day they passed in a small, pale woman, who bowed 
as she entered, but never spoke to any one during the three 
days and nights she passed in their chamber. She sat all that 
time upon a straw chair, taking only a few mouthfuls of bread 
and red wine, which the jailer forced the " old woman Crequy" 
to take to her. She kept her eyes constantly fixed upon a 
box, which she had placed upon another chair before her, on 
which she rested her feet. Although the prisoners were suf- 
fering greatly from cold, she incessantly fanned herself. 

One morning they missed her, but the box remained. Mad- 
ame Baffot inquired of the jailer if she would return. He 
significantly replied by dra,wing his hand across his neck. 
The box was opened, and in it found a bloody shirt from which 
the collar had been cut, a handful of black hair, and a little 
scrap of paper, on which was written, '' For my mother T Noth- 
ing further was ever known of either victim. 

If we are to pass judgment on a body by the general char- 
acter of its members, neither society nor humanity lost much 
in many of the decapitations of the aristocracy of this period. 
They were unjustly condemned and barbarously executed ; 
consequently, their deaths have attracted to their fates a gen- 
erous sympathy which the general tenor of their lives little 
warranted. A few anecdotes will illustrate this , Among the 
many so admirably told in these memoirs, it is difficult to de- 
cide upon the best. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 35 



The aunt of Madanle de Crequy, the Chavonine Countess 
of Mauberge, who died at 101 years of age without experien- 
cing any infirmities, called, in company with a friend, upon 
Madame du Deffand. Courtesy prompted them to inquire of 
the health of a dear friend of their hostess, then dangerously 
ill, but with whom she had entertained intimate relations for 
fifteen years, in accordance with the loose customs of the age 

" How is the dear invalid ?" 

" Eh ! mon Dieu ! I have but one lackey here at this mo- 
ment ; I will send one of my women to demand the news," 

" Madame, it rains in torrents ; I beg you to make use of ray 
coach." 

" Ah ! you are infinitely good, and I thank you a thousand 
times," charmingly replied Madame du DefTand. " Mademoi- 
selle," said she to her femme de chambre, " go and learn news 
of our dear little invalid. Madame the countess permits you 
to go in her coach on account of the rain. I am very grate- 
ful, and much touched," continued she, " for your interest in 
my favorite. He is so amiable, lively, and caressing. You 
know I am indebted to Madame du Chatelet for him." The 
two callers looked in astonishment at each other at a confi- 
dence so extraordinary and uncalled for. At length the car- 
riage returned. " Ah ! how have you found him ?" 

" Madame, as well as could be expected." 

" Has he eaten to-day ?" 

" He has wished to amuse himself in biting an old shoe, but 
M. Lyonnais would not permit it."' 

" Really," exclaimed the aunt, " a singular phantasy of an 
invalid." 

"But does he walk yet?" inquired Madame du DefTand. 

" As for that I can not tell, because he was lying on a little 
blue satin mattress ; but he knew me perfectly well, for he 
wagged his tail." 



36 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



" Monsieur the Chevalier de Pont-de-Yesle," exclaimed both 
the amazed visitors, '' wagged his tail !" 

" Ah, madames, it is of my little dog she speaks. I will 
send to inquire immediately of the health of M. de Pont-de- 
Vesle." 

The Marechale de Noailles was an original fool, as may be 
readily credited from the following examples of her mode of 
showing it. She maintained a correspondence with the Holy 
Virgin and the Patriarchs, depositing her letters in a pigeon- 
hole at her hotel, religiously believing that the responses re- 
ceived were as authentic as her own letters. 

She was sometimes a little shocked at the tone of familiari- 
ty which the Holy Virgin took with her, " Ma chere Marechale," 
and at the third line, said she, with a scornful air, " It must 
be allowed that the formula is a little familiar on the part of 
a peasant woman of Nazareth, but one must not be too ex- 
acting with the mother of our Savior," inclining her head as 
she pronounced the name of Jesus, '' and it is to be considered 
that the husband of the Virgin was of the royal race of David." 

She went one day to the high altar of Notre Dame to pray 
that her husband the duke might receive 1 ,800,000 francs of 
which he wg-s then in need, the order of the Garter, and, final- 
ly, a diploma as prince of the Holy Roman Empire, the only 
honors not in the family. 

She suddenly heard a juvenile voice from the altar respond, 
" Madame the marechale, you shall not have the 1 ,800,000 
francs you ask for your husband : he has already 100,000 
crowns rent, and that is enough ; he is already duke and peer, 
grandee of Spain, and Marshal of France ; he has the collar of 
the Holy Ghost and that of the Golden Fleece : your family is 
overwhelmed with the gifts of the court. If you are not sat- 
isfied, it is because it is impossible to satisfy you. Your 
husband shall not have the Garter of St. George." 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 37 

The lady not for a moment doubted that the voice was other 
than that of the infant Jesus, who was replying for his mother. 
She immediately called out, "• Hold your tongue, little fool, ana 
let your mother speak.''' It was a page of the queen, who, know- 
ing her folly, had hid himself behind the altar. 

After the fall of Robespierre, the few remaining noblesse is- 
sued from their retreats more frivolous and selfish, if possible, 
than before the storm. Madame de la Reyniere exclaimed to 
a visitor, " How sorry I am that the Viscountess of Narbonne 
was not guillotined I" 

" But why should you wish such a thing ?" 

" Ah ! I demand nothing better than that you should ask 
my reasons. Firstly, I am bored to death by hearing her 
spoken of." 

" But, as she is about the same age as you, she perhaps has 
the same cause to reproach you." 

" There is something worse than that : she was guilty of an 
impertinence to me in '85, at the Hotel de Soubise ; 1 wish she 
had been massacred in the prisons. You know they have 
exiled the Abbe d'Albignac. I am glad of it, he was so te- 
dious." 

" How is your son ? What has become of him in all this V 

" My son," replied the other, gaping, " has his fortune apart, 
and I have not heard him spoken of for a long time. When 
God did me the favor to have the misfortune to lose Mon- 
sieur de la Reyniere, they told me that my son was drowned 
at Nantes, but this, unfortunately, was not true. You knov/ 
the parents inherit from their children since the Revolution, 
and as he makes a bad use of his fortune, I wish much to have 
it to myself alone." 

With one more characteristic trait of the times, I shall have 
done. Madame de Galissoniere was the principal heiress of 
Madame de Pompadour. She had for a lover a M. Dejenaive. 



38 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

Learning one day of the death of his mistress, he forced the 
door of the chamber where she was laid out, and there discov- 
ered her corpse upon a table, in the frightful condition as left 
by the examining physicians. He threw himself upon it, pluck- 
ed out the heart, wrapped it up in his handkerchief, put it in 
his pocket, and left the house like a madman. 

Some time after, in relating the incident to Madame de 
Coislin, " Do you know what became of it ?" said he. 

" No ; go on ; you make me shudder." 

" Ah ! mon Dieu, yes ! I threw it down in rage upon a trunk 
when I entered my chamber. I went to bed and slept to dis- 
tract my mind. The next morning I saw that the handker- 
chief had fallen upon the floor. I sprang from my bed — my 
dog had eaten it — I killed him with one blow of a knife, but I 
could discover nothing of it — nothing at all, I then remem- 
bered that I had forgotten to feed him for several days past. 
What a dramatic and romantic adventure, is it not, madame ?" 

The idea of the great Napoleon as a little, sniffling, angry 
urchin, in these after-times of his glory, strikes one as almost 
incomprehensible. Yet Madame de Crequy gives us an anec- 
dote characteristic both of his temper and age. A lady pre- 
sented to her Madame Bonaparte, " escorted by a legion of 
badly-dressed children." 

" There was in this covey of Corsican birds a little boy who 
wept. His eyes were very red, but he appeared to swallow his 
tears. To pass the time, I benevolently asked his mother the 
reason of his affliction. ' Madame,' said she, in a gruff voice 
and awkward pronunciation, ' he is a monster.' In leaving the 
Bishop d'Autun, he had refused to kiss the hand of my lord, 
for which his mother had soundly boxed his ears as soon as 
they had entered their coach." Madame de Crequy viewed 
the introduction of the Bonaparte family to her in about as 
amiable and condescendinof a mood as would a " Fifth Avenue" 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 39 

dame an invasion of backwoods cousins from Arkansaw into 
her drawing-rooms on a month's visit. 

Her next interview with the " petit gar9on" was when he 
was miaster of the Tuileries. The First Consul requested her 
presence. She was announced as the Citizen Grequy, and at 
once found herself tete-a-tete with the conqueror of the Pyra- 
raiids. 

" He looked at me one or two minutes with an air of study, 
which was succeeded by a false air of tenderness. Then he 
said, with an expression which I call almost filial, ' I have de- 
sired to see you, madame ;' but he soon retook a sufficient and 
passably impertinent tone : ' You are a hundred years old — ' 

" ' Not quite, but nearly.' 

" ' How old are you, exactly ?' 

" I was tempted to laugh at such an interrogatory, and par- 
ticularly in such an imperative form. ' Monsieur,' I replied, 
smiling as one smiles at nxy age, alas ! and perhaps he did not 
perceive that I smiled, ' I can not tell my precise age. I was 
born in a chateau of Maine.' 

" ' Where do you lodge V. 

" ' At the Hotel de Crequy.' 

" ' The devil — and in what quarter?' 

" 'Hue de Grenelle.' 

" ' You had commotion yesterday in your quarter. Were you 
' afraid ? ' 

" ' I was not inquieted.' 

" ' No emeutes are possible under my government — no se- 
rious emeutes, but disturbances, I do not say. A handful of 
discontented persons have the air of something, but it is noth- 
ing. Is it not true V 

" ' Oh, surely. Three women who cry make more noise than 
three thousand men who hold their tongues.' 

" ' What you say is very good — do you know what you have 
said is very good '?' " 



40 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

In reply to the question, " Have you suffered from the revo- 
lutionary decrees ?" she alluded to some landed property that 
had been confiscated, which he accorded to her with " une 
grace parfaite :" afterward observing, with a distracted air, 
" Madame, to desire to do good during a revolution is to write 
upon the sand of the sea-shore ; that which escapes the winds 
is effaced by the waves," 

'' *■ Did you know Dubois and Cartouche V 

" I looked at him without replying, and so severely, that I 
am astonished when I recall it. He felt himself, apparently, 
that it was bad taste to ask news of Cartouche of the Marquise 
Dowager of Crequy ; and he made me a smile, so fine, so sweet, 
and so frank, that I remained totally disarmed. 

" ' Permit me to kiss your hand,' said he. I hastened to 
draw off my glove. ' Leave your glove, my good mother,' 
added he, with an air of exquisite solicitude ; then he applied 
his lips strongly to the tips of my poor centennial and decrepit 
fingers, which were uncovered." 

With all her aristocratic pride and prejudice, she was as 
powerless to resist the fascination of manner of Napoleon 
when he was in the view, as were equally the hereditary 
sovereigns of Europe, or his own rough, republican generals. 
" Poor soldier!" exclaims she, in the fullness of her proud com- 
miseration for his low parentage ; " he knew only the illus- 
trious names of the illustrious personages with whom I had 
passed my life in this same chateau that he uses as his own ;" 
and farther on the following reflection involuntarily escapes 
her, in mingled pathos and pride : " Alas ! that to-day they 
should give me this high name of Crequy, which 1 shall bear 
the last, and which they will soon write for the last time in a 
dirty register, beside the names of all the world, and perhaps 
on the same page with that of a Merlin or of a De Gasparin." 

Madame de Crequy died early in 1803, her exact age being 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 41 

unknown, but supposed to be not less than one hundred years. 
In the early part of her life her health was deplorable, and 
she purchased at a low price, for her life, the hotel of the Mar- 
quis de Fenquieres, which she occupied for seventy years — 
somewhat maliciously boasting of her great bargain. The 
" Journal des Debats" of 15th of February, 1803, says : " Her 
piety edified the disciples of the Gospel ; her charity nourished 
the poor, and even to her last days she preserved, by a spe- 
cies of miracle, her brilliant imagination, depth of understand- 
ing, freshness of memory, eclat of wit, and profundity of re- 
flection, that had always rendered her the admiration and' 
delight of distinguishedmen of every class and all countries." 
One can not read her memoirs without crediting this eulogium. 
She was a fine specimen of the born and trained aristocrat, 
and as such I can recommend her memoirs to my readers as the 
least exceptionable and most amusing and instructive of that 
class of French literature. Generally, they are either the stale 
records of selfish intrigues, or the piquant narratives of indi- 
vidual vice and heartless crime, so intermingling truth with 
falsehood that the reader often throws them aside in perplex- 
ity and disgust. Here we have, however, daguerreotype like- 
nesses of an aristocracy formed by an education that, while it 
robed them with elegances of person, left them destitute of 
the graces of the heart. I would exhibit them only as the 
Spartans did to their youth the drunken helots, as warnings 
against an insidious mental vice. But with that aristocracy 
to which I before alluded, which refines the intellect and dis- 
ciplines the heart, educating in happy balance and unison the 
moral and intellectual sentiments, creating among men the 
sole permanent distinctions of goodness and greatness, I would 
that our entire democratic lump was leavened. He who hap- 
pily combined the two in one harmonious whole was Wash- 
ington. 



CHAPTER 11. 

MATRIMONY, BOWS, ETC 

The moral welfare of society hinges so closely upon the 
greater or less estimation in which marriage is held, that the 
'interest with which this tie is viewed can never be exclusive- 
ly confined to those " in the market," This phrase, so sug- 
gestive of buying and selling, has acquired in fashionable life, 
even with us, a positive significancy. I refer not to Circas- 
sian beauty, sold by its weight. To appreciate my meaning 
in its broad and full Christian sense, we must turn to France. 
There a marriage is a literal matter of negotiation, in which 
Cupid has, in general, as little to do as in the sale of a pony 
or purchase of the three per cents. Hopeless is the case of 
the maiden without a "" dot.''^ The indispensable dowry stands 
in lieu of charms, education, accomplishments, character, and 
even virtue itself — not but that each and all of these, when to 
be had, enhance the value of the acquisition. But the first 
article of the matrimonial creed in France is, " I devoutly be- 
lieve in the ' dot,' as the one thing needful with a wife." If 
the candidate probe farther, it is chiefly to ascertain whether 
there be a scrofulous taint or hereditary insanity in the family 
of the adored one. These matters satisfactorily ascertained, 
the parents on either side hold a congress to arrange settle- 
ments for the young couple, provide for the exigencies of the 
anticipated generation, and to see that the affairs of the purse 
are made smooth and straight ; a practice which, by-the-way, 
if it were more often imitated here, would spare much of the 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 43 



misery arising from the thoughtless and hasty manner in which 
many American marriages are made- It often happens that 
the swain, beyond a family name or social position, has noth- 
ing to recommend him besides the experience of nearly three- 
score years, a well-preserved figure, and an empty purse. He 
has arrived at a condition in his fortune when a dowry of five 
hundred thousand francs becomes a consummation devoutly to 
be hoped for. His familiar starts such a one with the sagacity 
of a trained pointer. Negotiations are commenced, and the 
first time that " sweet sixteen" may see her partner for life 
is when he is presented as her prospective husband. Mamma 
and papa have arranged it all. An old man, with nothing but 
his bank-notes to recommend him, will sometimes buy a young 
girl ; but he seldom has occasion to congratulate himself on 
his purchase. I am now speaking of the general rule. There 
are exceptions, of course ; and faithful couples, and happy do- 
mestic circles, are not rare in France. Love, in the American 
sense, is, however, a very minor consideration. 

Now it would be requiring too much of human nature to 
expect it to rise above its own standard of action. The cor- 
rupt tree must bring forth corrupt fruit. So, where the prin- 
ciple of marriage is mainly a compound of pecuniary gain, 
social distinction, or selfish desire, the active result must be 
equally a compound of prodigality or meanness, pride or van- 
ity, lust or epicurism, leavened with tyranny on one side and 
deceit on the other. This applies more particularly to the up- 
per rounds of the social ladder. As we descend, the marriage 
principle partakes more of the practical requirements of a busi- 
ness copartnership ; to the benefits of which the female, if she 
can not bring a cash capital, must contribute untiring muscles 
and indefatigable industry. Not the tidy, home labor of the 
American female, whose greatest penance is a wash-tub, but 
a downright junior-partnership division of out-door work, shop- 



44 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



tending, book-keeping, and merchandise-buying, in addition to 
baby-raising and housekeeping labors. Whether from her su- 
perior energies, or the lordly laziness of her mate or not, it is 
difficult to decide, but certain it is that she invariably becomes 
the " man" of these " menages," and daring must be the French- 
man who would openly act within the articles of this copart- 
nership upon his sole responsibility. 

What unfledged traveler has ever been proof against the ir- 
resistible arguments of these trading syrens, until his experi- 
ences in shopping have convinced him that a hundred francs 
for an article he did not want, and which was not worth as 
many sous, was too dear, even with the fascinating smile and 
oily " but this agrees so nicely with Monsieur's charming fig- 
ure," or " fits exactly Monsieur's little hand," thrown in. They 
have a way of sliding in a side compliment in a remark to 
Madame, if she be with you, or, for want of a better bait, to 
their own husbands, that is sure to tell upon a John Bull just 
over, and seldom fails to be as effective on more cautious Jon- 
athan. What chance, then, has an Asiatic, with his Eastern 




JUST THE THING. 



notions of female seclusion about him, to escape the wiles of 
these infidel houris ? 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 



45 



Now marriage in France is far from being, as with us, a 
mere nod and its echo by a man and woman before a justice 
of the peace, a few commonplace words, and an engagement 
for life concluded with less trouble than the buying of a rail- 
road ticket ; but it is a serious and expensive affair. First, 
the bans must be duly published in the journals for several 
weeks ; then, on the day appointed, the parties and a troop of 
friends go before the mayor of their arrondissement, where the 
knot is civilly tied ; from thence to the church, where, with 




THE CIVIL MARRIAGE. 



religious pomp in proportion to the promised fee, the knot is 
retied, blessed, and sanctified by the priest. The kissing and 
congratulations completed, the wedding party adjourn to spend 
the night in dancing and festivity. 

This over, the parties have entered upon a marriage that 
would drive a Fourierite or a Sandite to despair. The church 



4G 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




THE ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE. 



having become a party to the contract, it is forever indissolu- 
ble. The most stringent causes have no more weight than 
the lightest distastes. Madame, your wife, is madame, your 
wife, until she is accommodating enough to take up her resi- 
dence m perpetuity at Pere le Chaise. Money and influence 
may at times procure a separation of beds and chattels, but 
nothing more. The result of so fixed a yoke would, in a more 
moral country, with many couples, lead to incalculable private 
'sinhappiness , but the French have a way of hghtening do- 
mestic loads, procuring congenial sympathies, and assuming a 
philosophical blindness to each other's frailties, that goes far 
to ward off' connubial chafing. As I do not think the secret 
would benefit my countrywomen, I shall not disclose it. 

The Code Napoleon allowed considerable latitude for di- 
vorce, but so hedged in with restrictions that it could not pro- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 47 

duce evil, if fairly applied ; while, on the other hand, it did 
away with many present temptations to immoral connections. 
At the Restoration, the laws permitting divorce were abro- 
gated. Repeated but vain attempts have been made since to 
reintroduce them into the Code. It remains to be seen whether 
the nephew, in his revival of the institutions of his uncle, will 
revive these. 

No institution has been .more the foot-ball of French lems- 
lation, since 1791, than that of marriage. Fouche, when he 
was in the department of the Nievre, instituted a fete in honor 
of Nature and the Republican Hymen. He gathered together 
four hundred youths of each sex, most of whom had never 
seen each other before, upon a meadow on the banks of the 
Loire. At one o'clock he ajDpeared, costumed as the high- 
priest of Nature, surrounded by a cortege of sans culottes, pre- 
ceded by a band of music. 

'' " Young citizens," cried he, " commence by choosing each 
of you a wife from these modest virgins." 

Immediately fifteen or twenty precipitated themselves upon 
a pretty girl of Donzy, whose father was well known to be a 
wealthy cabinet-maker. On her part, she resisted stoutly, 
weeping, and refusing to listen to any of her admirers, because 
she loved tenderly an absent cousin. 

As might be supposed, this matrimonial battle produced lit- 
tle satisfaction and still less harmony. The preferences of 
the young men and girls did not always correspond. It soon 
became a contest between natural liberty and individual 
choice. The troops were obliged to interfere and separate 
the disputants. They were then divided into two columns, 
and paired off as chance had placed them, according to their 
numbers, thus for once realizing for marriage that it was but 
a lottery. The ceremony terminated with a grand supper 
spread upon the " plain of equality." The husband to whom 



48 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

the pretty girl of Donzy was allotted became afterward a rich 
republican general. 

This gratuitous distribution of wives reminds me of an an- 
ecdote of the times illustrative of the opposite principle — of 
taking away what one hath. It might have been supposed 
that a name innocently handed down from father to son would 
have been left untouched by the republican shears. But no. 
After the sublime deess, Reason, usurped the place of the Holy 
Virgin in the churches, it was forbidden to make use of the 
word " saint," or to attach the aristocratic " de" to family 
names. A Mr. Saint Denis was called before the section of 
Guillaume Tell, and interrogated firstly as to his name. 

" I am called Saint." ■" But there are no longer any ' saints.'" 
"ThenI amDe." " But there are no ' ^e'^.'" " Then I must 
call myself ' IsTis.' Mr. Nis, at your service, since you leave 
me nothing more." 

Modesty has a widely difierent signification in France from 
the United States. Since the putting of pantalets upon the 
legs of a piano has ceased to be the apocryphal story of a cyn- 
ical John Bull, the modesty of American ladies stands upon 
the very apex of refinement. Even in London, I have met 
one — she was from the West, however, and of excellent sense 
in other particulars — who talked to me some time about the ^' 

" limbs" of a fine babe in her arms, before I discovered that it 
was his fat legs she was commending. 

I do not wish to be considered as depreciating American 
modesty, even if mawkishly exhibited, as the excess is on the 
side of virtue. Among French women there is a plainness of 
speech in all points that conveys the exact truth upon any sub- 
ject without the slightest circumlocution. They assume no 
disguise to their meanings. Even when a little sentiment 
would be a decided and welcome embellishment, it is ruth- 
lessly thrust aside. I have heard in society remarks from la- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



49 



dies of rank, that elsewhere would have startled me ; and yet 
here custom disrobes them of all impropriety. Still, I think, 
for the sake of the high-toned sentiment a man of refinement 
would ever cherish toward the sex that bestows upon him his 
purest pleasures and associations, a little more of social poetry, 
or prudery, as some would ungallantly term it, would be wel- 
come even in France. While such liberties are taken with 
the tongue, there is more outward show of modesty in the in- 
tercourse of the sexes than with us. The same ladies, whose 
lips tripped not over any description or allusion, were really 
shocked when I told them that at our fashionable ocean re- 
treats it is customary for men and women promiscuously to 
bathe. For a young couple to ride or walk together, unattend- 
ed by a near relative, would be an unpardonable indecorum. 

On a rainy day a French wom- 
an of any rank hesitates not, if 
necessary to save her skirts, to 
expose her legs as freely as her 
arms. It is really astonishing to 
see with what grace and purity 
they will carry their hose and ^|§| 
linen over the muddiest ways. " 
Each is of the finest character 
and most elaborately finished, so that not even a bachelor of 
flinty threescore can look upon these adroit walkers with un- 
admiring eyes. 

To return to my original topic, marriage. The following 
extract from a journal, furnished me by no matter whom, will 
explain admirably some of my preceding views. 

"I have been married since the 20th of January, 185-, that 
is to say, about fifteen days. Mon Dieu !" (French women of 
every quality are given to exclamations which their more 
sensitive American sisters would term " swearing," but which, 

C 




60 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

after all, are as innocently intentioned as any puritanical " good 
gracious!" or "bless me!") "what a change has so short a 
time wrought in my ideas ! Is it I who am wrong, or is it 
marriage ? I do not know. Here are my impressions. May 
it please Heaven that I do not become deranged in recording 
them upon paper. 

"' Marriage,' said my schoolmates to me, 'is the realization 
of our most poetic dreams ; the tender sentiments felt at the 
sight of a young man, the inquietudes thus we experience at 
the return of spring time, or the rising of the moon behind the 
acacias ; the necessity of weeping without a motive that so 
often seizes upon us — all these emotions,' said they, ' explain 
themselves in marriage. The soul divines in this word the 
enigma.' So I left my boarding-school. 

" I said to myself, without being quite as romantic as my 
young companions, ' It is not possible that my parents have 
kept me ten years at school, that they have had me taught Ital- 
ian, German, English, music, singing, design, painting, litera- 
ture, and dancing, to marry a man who does not love the arts.' 

" The day after leaving my school, my mother said to me, 
' You will marry a rich paint-merchant of Street.' 

" My first question was, ' Does he know music V ' I tell 
you,' replied my mother, 'that he is a paint-merchant.' 

" Eight days after, they led me to the mayor's office for the 
civil rite, thence to the church for the religious ceremony. It 
was the first time but one that I had seen my husband— 

" I have just been interrupted by one of his customers, who 
ordered from me fifty pounds of putty, a barrel of verdigris, 
two casks of glue, twenty pounds of sulphur, and two papers 
of asafoBtida. 

" After having washed my hands fifty times without de- 
stroying the odors of the above fragrant merchandise, I retake 
ray pen to continue my married experience. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



51 




"'My friend,' said I to 
him at the end of eight days, 
' will you buy me a piano V 
' What for V inquired he of 
me : ' how much does one 
cost?' 'Twelve hundred 
francs.' ' Twelve hundred 
francs!' exclaimed he, in 
amazement : ' I prefer with 
that money to buy whale 
oil, and wait a rise. Be- 
sides, a married woman 
never touches a piano.' 

" I submit. 

" Another interruption — ' 
my husband awakes. 

" ' What are you reading 
there V he called out, with considerable anger in his tone ; 
' do you read in the shop ? There is always something to do 
here — put on the labels— pack — measure — weigh.' ' All is 
done, my friend,' I replied. ' What book is that V ' The po- 
ems of Ossian, the son of Fingal.' ' You know English, then?' 
' Yes, my friend.' ' You know every thing, then,' and he turned 
his back upon me, sneering. 

" I resign myself. 

" Habitude, submission, and resignation are, I know, the 
graces, the three theological virtues of marriage. I know that 
I shall perform my duties so as to please even my husband. 

" But why, I ask, do they teach young girls so many things 
that later only inspire them with regret that they have learned 
them ? Why not educate them to be the wives of paint-mer- 
chants, grocers, butchers, &c. ?" 

This is no romance, but the actual experience of thousands 



MONSIEUR. 



52 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

of well-educated, refined, and sentimental misses in France. 
Is it strange that they should ripen into the practical, unpoet- 
ical, manoeuvring, hard-working, but pleasure-loving women 
we so often find there ? Freshness of features and delicacy 
of outline they certainly lose, but courtesy of speech ever 
abides with them. The domestic heart that lightens up a 
home — what becomes of it 1 Home ! in English a word ex- 
pressive of every tender and true emotion — the concentration 
of the joys of life — in French is simply " chez-moi." Not, as 
with us, a combination of I's, forming a harmonious unity un- 
der a loved roof, each contributing to the general stock of hap- 
piness from his own overflowing afTections ; the family holy 
of holies, sacred from the stranger's eye, overshadowed by 
cherub and seraph, from whose hearts constantly ascends the 
incense of peace and love, but a spot wherein the individual 
" moi" may be located, sometimes where he sleeps, oftener 
where he eats; on the boulevard, in the restaurant, sipping 
black coffee and drinking clear brandy, on a sidewalk in front 
of his cafe ; in short, wherever the individual Frenchman finds 
it most for his individual pleasure to be. You might as well 
try to locate a will-o'-the-wisp, or to keep stationary a fire-fly, 
as to fix upon a Frenchm.an's home. It is wherever he shines 
brightest or dazzles most. His pleasures consist in the outer 
life — the external gilding ; bright and beautiful without, but, 
like gold-leaf, often covering what is decayed and hollow 
within. In short, " home" and " chez-moi" are the social an- 
tipodes. 

I have again thrust my hand into my roll of life-experiences, 
and drawn out Lisette's letter to Juana. How I came by this, 
and other equally instructive epistles, is mine and not the read- 
er's business. If he be a Yankee, let him fall back upon his 
birthright of guessing. Suffice it, that they not only tell the 
truth in these individual instances, but echo the half-acknowl- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 53 

edged truth from myriads similarly conditioned. If parents 
barter their daughters for a position, they need not be sur- 
prised if the connubial tree ripens rebellion and hypocrisy on 
one side, and suspicion and severity on the other. But in 
France, these fruits, so bitter and choking within, are without 
like the apples that grow on the borders of the sea of Sodom, 
very fair to behold. 

Lisette was, in the youthful days of her marriage, as sub- 
missive, sad, and sensitive as the paint-merchant's bride. 
Time and trial, however, have made her worldly-wise and 
wondrous cunning. Her husband, a wealthy bourgeois, judges 
women by his own weaknesses. It would require a strojig 
necessity to deprive him of any of his favorite gratifications. 
His own deficiencies he seeks to counterbalance in the forced 
self-denials of his wife — a species of vicarious expiation of 
male sins common to matrimony ever since the discovery has 
been made that the twain are not one. Now Lisette is afraid 
of her husband, and so outwits him. Show m.e the woman in 
whom deception is not the twin of fear. Husbands, make a 
note of this — root it out, transplant to its place confidence ; so 
shall he have love and peace. 

" Dear Juana, — My bear is gone ; now we can amuse our- 
selves under a free sky. God be praised, I am free. To 
crown my felicity, my two grenadiers of daughters have gone 
back to their boarding-school this morning. Do you know, 
it is not always agreeable to have by one's side, every where 
one goes, two great registers of birth, plainly declaring, 
Mamma should be from thirty to thirty-five. ' I tell you,' 
adds some charitable soul, ' that she is thirty-seven. Calcu- 
late ! She was married at twenty-four.' To cut short all such 
assassins, I have cloistered these two misses. It is a year 
gained. 



54 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

" The first use I sliall make of my liberty is to read the 
novel which has been the rage for six months. My husband 
has excited in me an irresistible desire to know more of it, 
from saying ' I forbid you to read it — it is stupid and immoral.' 
At length I shall read this book. I will tell you if it is as full 
of points as they say. 

" Now or never, we can go to the little theatres — another 
antipathy of my bear. 

" Take a box for to-morrow, I beg you. We will go together 
to see the Bohemians of Paris. I have read in a newspaper 
that it is full of robbers, monsters, and kidnappers, that make 
their victims disappear through trap-doors. Secure, by all 
means, a stage-box. 

" You asked me the other day, in an excess of bad-humor, 
in what I made consist earthly happiness. I understood you, 
my poor Juana. Happiness often consists, not in possessing 
what we have not, but in ceasing to possess what we have. 
Your happiness would be, perhaps, oh misery ! in becoming a 
widow. I do not say that you wish the death of your husband. 
That is no more your wish than mine, although our positions 
are so similar. But you and I can perceive the delight of be- 
ing free with the experience we have acquired. Plow one 
could respire with a full-drawn breath in escaping from the 
prisons of the conjugal yoke, to enter into the paradise of wid- 
owhood ! Widow ! widow ! that word breathes liberty ! One 
then can go where they wish, see whom they wish, go out 
when they wish, and return when they wish. How charming ! 
Is not such a condition, for a woman, the happiest of all social 
positions, dear Juana ? 

" Patience, sweet friend ; in waiting, let us take all the 
pleasure we can during the absence of my husband, an ex- 
cellent man at bottom, and of whom I have nothing to com- 
plain, and the sickness of yours, who is tiresomely long in his 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 55 

illness. Say to him a thousand amiable things on my part. 
Adieu. Don't forget the novel and the box at the theatre. 
"Tafidele, Ltsette." 



The contrast between the staid recognition of street friends 
in America, with the succession of deep and diversified salu- 
tations which precede a conversation in the public places of 
Paris, is very striking to one accustomed only to the former, 
or the angular, undignified elbow-jerk, or finger lifted to the 
hat, which pass for bows among Anglo-Saxons. The latter 
might well, in view of the ceremonious pantomime of the Pa- 
risians, come to the same conclusion as did the Chevalier Ma- 
rin three centuries since, that " in France all conversation com- 
menced with a ballet." It frequently does with a hug which 
would do honor to Bruin, and a succession of kisses on each 
cheek that explode like warm soda-water. It is a curiosity to 
an American to see two huge Frenchmen, whiskered and mus- 
tached to an extent that would set up half a dozen Hungarian 
refugees in face-hair, rush like two meteors, from opposite 
sides of the street, into each other's arms, kissing each other 
with the rapidity of platoon firing on a field-day. As a gallant 
man, he would consider it a shameful waste of the raw mate- 
rial, and think gratefully of his mamma, who taught him to 
reserve all such demonstrations of affection for his sisters and 
sweetheart. If he wish to obtain a correct idea of the con- 
fusion of tongues at Babel before the confusion became con- 
founded, let him stop and hear them talk. Of what use ears 
are to an excited Frenchman naturalists have yet to discover. 
At the same time, we would have them extend their investi- 
gations into the flexibility of a French tongue as compared 
with an English organ of speech. It would be curious to de- 
termine the exact difference between the two. 

But to return to the flexibility of the back, or, in other words. 



56 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

to the little street ballets of which we just spoke. From the 
diversities of style in salutation we can learn not a little of the 
history of Parisian society. The profound, triplicate saluta= 
tion, so difficult withal, and yet so graceful, which M. Jourdain 
in vain labored to attain from his " maitre de danse," with its 
exaggeration of compliment: "Beautiful marquise, your be- 
witching eyes make me die of love," has passed away with 
the revolution of '93. It was well it did, for it required the 
agility and muscle of a rope-dancer to preserve at once one's 
politeness and equilibrium. We have, however, a series of 
bows in the social ladder, from that of the Marshal of France 
to the gamin of the quartier St. Antoine, worthy of the study 
of a connoisseur of manners. We have caught a few as they 
passed on the side-walk, and transferred them to our menage- 
rie of Sights and Principles 

Here we have the bow audacious : this is the fate of every 

g^ lady who has the cour- 

i^ W^h^ age to walk the streets 

^ ^v ^H ^r^M ^^' -P^^^^ unattended by 

Ua m-^ /^^^^z'*^^!- ^ gentleman. Not that 

m. \ m^ ''^v'^W^^B^p ^^ she need fear open in- 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ness ; but it is the uni- 
~ ==^— - - _-._-,== versal experience of 

womankind in Paris, whether with or without pretensions to 
youth and beauty, to receive in the street equivocal compli- 
ments from the male sex. All this may seem, and is undoubt- 
edly, very rude ; nevertheless, it is very common. The slight- 
est notice would draw further attention from these experi- 
enced roues, while a correct and cool deportment is always 
sure to command respect and forbearance when they discover 
their mistake. They view the streets of Paris as the poacher 
does the seignorial shooting-grounds — -as a great game range, 




GALLANT, AND NOT UNCOMMON. 



UNQUIET — MISERABLE. 




hz 

GOOD-NATURED — INSULTING — BENEVOLENT — COLD — HUMILIATING — HUMBLE. 



68 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ill which they are willing to risk being shot for the sake of 
occasionally pocketing a bird. 

While upon this topic, an anecdote charmingly illustrative 
and delightfully piquant occurs to me. The lady was not hand- 
some, middle-aged, a prude, yet prompted by vanity to con- 
strue as gallantry such attentions as fell in her way. As she 
enjoyed the reputation of piety, she replied to her supposed 
tempters by quotations from Holy Writ, and general axioms on 
the beauty of virtue and naughtiness of vice. A gentleman, 
who, by the way, was half crazy, but sane enough to appreciate 
her weakness, wrote to her repeatedly, desiring an interview, 
as he had something of importance to communicate. Her 
waggish friends suggested that it must be a person of rank 
desperately enamored of her. She accordingly planned at 
once her revenge and deliverance from his amorous persecu- 
tions. Putting on her most attractive dress, she curled her 
hair anew, and laid in fresh stock of moral precepts and irre- 
sistible arguments, taking care to have her friends in ambush 
to witness her triumph. 

Her visitor was announced, punctual to her appointment. 
He was not less than sixty, and with a wandering eye that be- 
tokened an eccentric brain. " Madame," said he, abruptly, 
""I have a declaration to make to you. I wish to inform you 
of something I deem necessary for you to know. Have the 
goodness not to interrupt me, Madame, because I have come 
here to render you a service. 1 have seen, ah ! le diable ! the 
strange figures of valetudinarians, sick people, convalescent, 
and the dying at the mineral waters. How drolly they dress 
when they bathe ; they have the most inconceivable head- 
dresses and outrageous robes — " '' But, sir, what interest can 
I take — '' " Madame, you are continually interrupting me. 
Stop — you may believe me if you will, but I give you my word 
that T have never seen any woman so singularly, and, permit 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 59 

me to add, so badly dressed as you are." " Leave me, sir : you 
are a fool," " Not at all, Madame ; and I have come here to 
counsel you not to coiffure yourself, nor dress any more after 
such a horrible manner. All the expense of your toilet is 
money lost." By this time Madame was speechless vv^ith rage 
and mortification. It required considerable address on the 
part of her friends to persuade the critic to leave, vi^hich he at 
last did, comforting her with the parting assurance that her 
figure was too gross and common to have any pretensions to 
elegance. 



# 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BOULEVARDS AND BATHS OF PARIS. 

The Boulevards of Paris may be compared to the beautiful 
setting of a valuable gem. Along their circuitous course cir- 
culates the gay and brilliant life of this sparkling metropolis. 
Not that these celebrated avenues are uniformly fashionable, 
although uniformly broad and spacious, shaded with trees, and 
bounded on either side by buildings whose architectural beau- 
ties might well excite the envy of less favored capitals. Com- 
mencing at the central point of attraction, the Madeleine, they 





THE MADELEINE. 



stretch away on their winding course around what constituted 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 61 

the city of the "■ well-beloved" Louis, at every turn baptized 
anew with names that have now grown classical, sweeping 
over the site of the Bastile southerly, then westerly encircling 
the Latin (oluarter, the Luxembourg, and the Faubourg St. 
Germain, sidling by the Invalides until they are arrested by 
the Seine and Champs Elysees, which separate them from the 
spot whence we started. Condensed within this circuit are 
the extremes of all that makes life desirable or burdensome : 
wealth that would astonish Crcesus, luxury that would have 
driven LucuUus to despair, and misery sufficient to jieople hell 
with woe. It is not of the interior of this labyrinth of stone 
and flesh that I would now write, for it would require more 
works than Omar burned to record its history, but merely to 
invite the reader to follow me in a hasty drive around that 
portion of the Boulevards where he will find most to amuse 
and bewilder. Failing as words must be to convey a da- 
guerreotype sketch of this varied scene, 1 have pressed into 
my service wherewithal to aid the reader's imagination and 
supply my deficiency; for if there are some scenes in nature 
whose beauty requires the aid of canvas to convey them to the 
brain, there are others of stirring humanity so complex and 
artificial as to equally baffle all verbal description. 

Americans, fresh from New York, are prone to institute a 
comparison, particularly in width, between Broadway and the 
Boulevards. The former is certainly a very respectable ave- 
nue, fringed with many fine buildings, and as noisy, dirty, and 
confused as the most devoted Gothamite could desire. Such 
diversity in costume and show in equipage as republican sim- 
plicity or aristocratic taste admit, are to be seen here. Female 
beauty and vanity, and male coxcombry, have chosen it for 
their favorite kingdom ; rags and mendicity dog their steps 
and haunt its corners. The shops are rich in display, but lack- 
ing in taste, and there is a universal hurry, roar of omnibuses. 



62 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 

rush of pedestrians, dust iii dry weather, and mud in wet 
weather, that makes the denizen of the Fifth Avenue or the 
rural citizen as much rejoiced to escape from its whirl, as the 
seaman of Norway from, the perilous Maelstrom of his inhos- 
pitable coast. To saunter in Broadway is out of the question 
A walk is but a succession of jostlings, elbow-chafings, or a 
hoisting and contorting of the body, and active use of the nether 
members to avoid collision, that leaves one, by the time he has 
arrived at the Battery, very much under the impression that 
he has been stretched upon the rack to test its excruciating 
powers. A peep into a shop window is an invitation to a 
pick -pocket ; to cross the street requires as much skill as to 
conduct " the retreat of the Ten Thousand ;" and to get home 
again, sound in wind and whole in purse, after having under- 
gone the gauntlet of its innumerable perils, is as much a mat- 
ter of devout thanksgiving as to escape being boiled, burned, 
or drowned in a steam-boat trip up the Hudson. Broadway is 
a plethora of metropolitan nuisances, and the City Fathers will 
find, at last, that there is but one remedy : either to double its 
width, or to make a twin avenue, running parallel, and thus 
divide its overloaded circulation. Paris has effected this re- 
form, in a much-needed quarter, at a cost of several millions 
of dollars, in the elongation of the Rue de Rivoli, ruthlessly 
cutting through the densest and most valuable property of the 
city for this purpose. 

The width of the Boulevards, double, and in places treble 
that of Broadway, gives ample scope for the pedestrians. Be- 
sides, a Parisian crowd flows on as easily and noiselessly as 
the current of a deep river. The doctrine of individual rights, 
irrespective of sex, is scrupulously respected,. and any physical 
infringements promptly met by a courtesy that leaves behind 
no more uncomfortable reminiscence than the politeness of 
the unintentional aggressor. One can saunter on the Boule- 



PARISIAN SKiHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 03 

vards. They are the empire of the curious, the vain, the idler 
of every fashionable class, and the El Dorado of shoppers. 
Along its stone boundaries, ornate without, and so rich in all 
the luxuries of life within, are to be found the homes of every 
taste, carnal or intellectual, and a devout Catholic might add 
spiritual, if the sensual worship of the Madeleine can be class- 
ed under that head. Well do the Boulevards merit their fame. 
Once the bulwark of Paris, they have now become its parterre 
of fashion. Along its Macadamized way, as smooth as a joint- 
ed floor, constantly watered and s\^4ppt, and lined on either 
side with shade-trees, roll noiselessly by thousands of gay equi- 
pages, brilliant with the wealth and beauty of the capital of 
the world. No clatter of iron-loaded trucks or unsightly piles 
of merchandise jar inharmoniously upon the ear, or disfigure 
its beautiful proportions. The scene is ever in keeping with 
its purposes as the focus of Parisian life. Morning and even- 
ing, regiments march by, preceded by bands from whose instru- 
ments swells a loud chorus of inspiring strains. The unrival- 
ed airs of the Opera here greet the ear of this mingling tide 
of nations. Embassadors and princes, the nobility and bank- 
ers of Europe, they to whom fortune has suddenly entered 
their doors, to be as speedily thrown out of the windows, here 
do congregate to exhibit their style, to outshine all competi- 
tors, and to levy the indispensable tribute of envy and eye-wor- 
ship. Costume is not here confined, as in Broadway or Re- 
gent Street, to the same graceless hat and dull black cloth, 
varied only in the first by the butterfly attire of the " ladies" 
of creation, and in the latter by their inextinguishable bad 
taste, but comprises the flowing Arab robe, the stately Ottoman 
turban, the decorations and uniforms of every order and army 
in Europe, all that is strange or picturesque in provincial or 
national garb, and all that is tasteful and charming in female 
attire. Here every fashion finds itself a home, intermingling 



64 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

with the native grace of wild flowers and attractiveness of 
cultivated plants in one bouquet of humanity — a peaceful con- 
gregation of nations for the cultivation of the lust of the eye 
and pride of the heart. 

The contrasts in the life of the Boulevards are as striking as 
those of a human being. They have their grave and gay mo- 
ments, their chaste and licentious hours, their solitude and 
their tumult. At seven o'clock in the morning, all is silent. 
The shops are shut, the very hackmen are dozing on their 
boxes. A footstep resounds ominously on the pavement. By 
eight o'clock a few carriages are in motion, porters begin to 
stir, occasional workmen in blouses go merrily singing to their 
toil. At nine o'clock the sidewalks are washed and brushed, 
shop-windows opened, the grisettes begin to appear, and an 
occasional frock-coat, but evidently as much out of its element 
as a fresh-caught flounder. Even at ten o'clock Parisian 
households are like so many oysters in their shells. At elev- 
en, the world of business stirs ; at mid-day, the Boulevards 
breakfast, and the buyers begin to inspect the windows, and 
tax the endurance of clerks. From two to five the current of 
life is in its apogee. Humanity, well dressed and elaborately 
adorned, is abroad to sun itself — to relieve its pent-up humors 
by gazing upon the holiday expression of its neighbor man, 
and to catch and reflect back the universal look of outer satis- 
faction. There is no despotic rule of cloth here. It is the 
jubilee of fashions and the paradise of manners. All are at 
their ease, and there are as many cuts to a coat and shapes to 
a hat as there are fancies to their owners. Rigid toilets are 
banished to the more pretending Champs Elysees. Women, 
" comme il faut," shop, but never promenade on the Boule- 
vards. Their finished elegance and graceful recognitions are 
reserved for the more aristocratic crowd. 

Later in the dav, the restaurant and cafe world are in the 



"PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



Go 



ascendant. The diners are in rapid circulation, dividing their 
attention and purses between the localities so firmly fixed in 
the gastronomic memory of every " gourmet." Cheap dinners 




are not to be had under the shadow of the " Maison Doree," 
that wilderness of gilding and bizarre finish, nor yet within 
the Cafe Cardinal, of which the basement alone rents for ioxtj 



66 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



thousand francs. For these, the more democratic shades of 
the Palais Royal must be sought, shunning the Scylla of Yery's 
and the Trois Freres Provencaux, which have shipwrecked as 




many purses as any other of their tribe in more brilliant lo- 
calities. The dined now fill the chairs on the side-walks at 
two sous each, in front of the Cafe de Paris and other kindred 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



67 



quarters, sipping black cofiee and clear brandy, eating ices, or 
drinking beer, gossiping and gazing in the intervals. They 
are soon joined by their families, women and children, as much 
at home in the open air as any Englishman in his "castle." 
Gas now adds its light to the brilliant scene, and reflectors 
outside of the shop-windows pour their concentrated brilliancy 
upon gems and jewels that rival any in store in Aladdin's 
cave. The Boulevards at night are in a blaze of light. It is 
then that they appear to the best advantage. The world, hav- 
ing dined, has become good-natured. Every one is abroad for 
pleasure. Opera and theatres are attracting their worshipers 
in crowds. Electrical lights lend their dubious brilliancy to 
the varied spectacle, dancing upon street and wall the varied 
hues of the rainbow, coloring every countenance with ghastly 
blue, or shooting into the long distance a train of gradually- 
diminishing light, like the attenuated tail of a comet. 

The " Maison du Grand 
Balcon" is a fine speci- 
men of modern Parisian 
architecture, which com- 
prises so great a variety 
of professions and profes- 
sors under one roof. In 
it are shops which leave 
nothing to be desired in 
point of magnificence — 
apartments fit for a prince, 
bachelor, or grisette. El- 
egance, refinement, vir- 
tue, poverty, and vice can each find a home, at its price, in one 
of these habitations. Their external appearance is no crite- 
rion ofwhatmaybe found within ; the convenient neighborly 
blindness, or indifference to individual acts, which pervades 




MAISON DU GRAND BALCON. 



68 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



the French metropolis, so unlike the prying curiosity and per- 
sonal interest of American and English society, leave as much 
latitude of action, provided external decorum is not infringed 
as the most isolated heart could desire. 




Passing the Boulevard Montmartre, fashion and elegance he- 
gin slowly to decline. The buildings are still beautiful, but 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



69 



the foot-passengers indicate a gradual approach to the manu- 
facturing regions of St. Antoine and the Jewish colonies of the 
Temple. Here are congregated, in close proximity, the low- 




priced theatres, where, for a franc or less, the canaille indulge 
their taste for spectacles, and their lungs in every variety of 
noise that makes the drama hideous. They smoke, babies 



70 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



scream, nurses jabber, nuts are cracked, fruit devoured, and 
from six o'clock until midnight, riot and happiness, under the 
supervision of the gendarmes, pervade the scene. These the- 




atres are the lyceums of the poorer classes, the schools of theii 
manners, the forum of their eloquence — in short, the all they 
know^ of the world outside of their work-shops, except the ele- 
mentary education of the dram-shop. Villainous corn brandy. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 71 

and debasing theatricals, enter largely into the physical and 
mental training of the lower orders. Yet degradation among 
therai has not the repulsive, criminal aspect that it has among 
the corresponding class of English society. It does not extin- 
guish self-respect. Their vanity outlives every other senti- 
ment ; and this, comhined with their inexhaustible " bonhom- 
mie," makes them the sensual, live-for-to-day race that we 
find them. They may be dirty, ragged, ferocious, or fanciful 
in their exteriors — a race of " tigers pitted with the small- 
pox," or combining all the hideous ugliness of dress and per- 
son of Marat, yet over all is thrown that air of individual hu- 
mor and importance that never forsakes a Parisian, and secures 
for him, even in the lowest stage of existence, a medium po- 
sition between the brutalized poverty of Ireland and the com- 
fortable indigence of America. 

The world of the Boulevards, which has become in this re- 
gion somewhat vulgar, revives again somewhat as we ap- 
proach the Column of July. Still, it is a very different world 
from that of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, although strictly 
Parisian in every feature. It has lost its brilliancy, but has 
acquired in its place an air of comfort and independence. It 
is the Bowery versus Broadway. Those catchalls of human 
vanity, the magazine of the debris of fashion, luxury, arts, and 
folly, the '■'■ hric.-a-hrac'"' shops, are numerous. We are in the 
region of cheap rents and bargains. Fashion has not here in- 
vaded thrift and economy. Her glitter is seen in the perspect- 
ive, and her repudiated garments or prodigal spillings can be . 
had in this quarter for a song. A short walk and a moderate 
sum will put one in possession of an apartment, regal in ex- 
tent and decayed grandeur, in the very centre of the "court- 
end" of the Medicean queens, the Place Royal, now republic- 
anized into the Place des Vosges. For a neighbor he would 
have the Hotel de Carnavalet and all the charming associa- 



73 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



tions connected with the " esprit" and talent of Madame de 
Sevigne, who here reigned sovereign of wit and refinement, 
and composed those letters which have immortalized her 










name. Beyond the Seine the Boulevards maintain their 
width, their trees, their stateliness, and majesty. But it is no 
longer the majesty of Paris, It is the reign of the country: 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 73 



quiet, shady avenues, removed from the turmoil and excite- 
ment of the city, yet keeping in view Notre Dame, the Garden 
of Plants, the V\^ine-market, in which there is liquor enough 
stowed to float a navy, the (iuaker-like He Saint Louis, that 
city of the sick and insane, the " Salpetriere," that grandilo- 
quent mass of stone and mortar, the Pantheon, and termina- 
ting at the tomb of Napoleon and the home of his veterans. 

The historical associations of the Boulevards are of a recent 
date and comparative insignificance. Fieschi has given an 
assassin's celebrity to the house No. 50, on the Boulevard du 
Temple, and in that of the Capucines we gaze with mournful 
interest upon the hotel once occupied by Madame du Barri. 
It was here, while on her way to execution, that she asked the 
driver of the fatal cart to pause for a moment, that she might 
once more view that beautiful monument of her pride and her 
shame. While Death was counting the few remaining mo- 
ments of her life, she was looking regretfully back upon the 
deceptive pleasures of her sensuous career. How many there 
are of her sex at the present hour who barter virtue for still 
more ephemeral luxury, passing daily, in their briUiant equi- 
pages, this house, which, if they ever bestowed a thought upon 
its former occupant, might become to them at once a lesson 
and a warning! To complete the moral, the cart which con- 
veyed her to the scaffold should crown its gateway, with her 
last despairing cry for life, as she struggled in the execution- 
er's hands, inscribed upon its frame. 

The Boulevards are a panorama only of modern Paris. To 
see at one glance the past with the present, we must turn to 
the banks of the Seine. It is here that are most powerfully 
realized the pulsations of the strong heart of this mural mon« 
ster, with its condensation of life and death. The past stares 
upon us from the towers of Notre Dame, looks up from the 

D 



74 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

dungeons of the Conciergerie, gazes askant from the blood- 
soaked pavement of the Place de Greve, charitably opens the 
doors of the Hotel Dieu, and, with mingled shame and pride, 
displays the Louvre, Tuileries, and the Hotel de Yille. The 
present rejoices in its magnificent quays, crowded on either 
side with noble specimens of architecture, rich in the accumu- 
lated learning and science of ages. The abode of the saintly 
Louis, now the Palace of Justice, the Holy Chapel, with its 
medieval treasures and saintly relics, the venerable Institute, 
and a long line of palaces, overshadow the waters of the Seine. 
Here, too, are the relics of olden time — quaint old houses, whose 
roofs sheltered the partisans of the Fronde. A motley and 
curious blending of what has become and is to be history 
does the Seine present. It is as if Time had swept into one 
heap the living and the dead. The current of the former runs 
healthy and strong. Unlike the Boulevards, it is not simply a 
sparkling, playful stream, on the bosom of which one can with 
equal ease leisurely float or quickly glide, but a deep, dense, 
full current of working life, hurrying rapidly on to its destiny. 
Those who seek its quays are baited by an object. Men do 
not come here to lounge, nor women for display. They avoid 
it until necessity, or with them equally imperious pleasure, 
draws them into its vortex. Yet in no part of Paris is the liv- 
ing world more full of variety and interest. The noble bridges 
that at short intervals span the Seine afford from their para- 
pets far more interesting sights than those of the Thames. 
There, every thing must be seen through an atmosphere of coal- 
dust : a muddy river and muddier bed ; dingy buildings ; black, 
graceless steamers ; a black forest of masts ; huge columns of 
black smoke pouring incessantly upward from spectre-like 
chimneys ; black coats and black hats — everything dark, heavy, 
a,nd gloomy. A pall seems spread over the public edifices, and 
suspended in the air. One glance shows the Thames in all its 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



75 



unpicturesque monotony, as it has been, is, and ever will be 
while London sky continues to be a solution of fog- and smoke. 
Not so on the Seine. Its sun is a bright, gladdening sun. 
Under its influence, its banks grow gay with life and light. Its 
prospects are ever changing and attractive. The stone em- 
bankments confine its bed to a deep, strong stream, leaving no 




VIEW FROM THE QUAY OF THE LOUVRE 



margin for mud, or the ordinary nuisances of a river intersect- 
ing a city. Where space permits, trees, grass, and flowers 
flourish, contrasting sweetly with the gray stone about them. 
The atmosphere is brilliantly clear. The landings are scrupu- 
lously neat. Every species of merchandise and marketing has 
its distinct place. The batteaux, miniature steamers, boats, 



76 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



and rafts, seem all to be arranged for a picturesque effect. 
There is no crowding. Each has ample space, and the whole 
form a river-scene unexcelled in its artificial accompaniments 
by the hand of man elsewhere. 

The Parisian loves the Seine as the Venetian loves the Adri- 
atic and the Hollander his dikes and marshes. The poor Lu- 
tece, which gave birth to the present city, was two thousand 
years since but a miserable hamlet of fishermen. A petty 
tribe of savages gained a scanty subsistence from what was 
then a thick forest or treacherous morass. The aquatic taste 
and origin of the founder of Paris are perpetuated in the 
present arms of the city, a vessel under sail, and on the collars 
of the municipal police will be found embroidered this craft 
as a distinctive badge. What the codfish is to Massachu- 
setts, the Seine is to Paris — the source and emblem of its pros- 
perity. Its waters sustain the living and receive the despair- 
ing. Deprive Parisians of charcoal and the Seine, and suicide 
would be at a loss for a weapon It supplies Paris with drink- 
ing water — a fluid, however, not much in request The sew- 
ers discharge their filthy currents into its stream, yet the 
washerwomen hesitate not to moor their mammoth establish- 
ments in close proximity to these subterranean outlets, and 




r P- J ([ "'"'yW^W ' k i lllln H JH ; ~| | « lT y. | 








WA-SHiNG ESTABLISHMENT 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



77 



contrive to return linen of unimpeachable purity. Some of 
these floating wash-tubs are vast, airy, and constructed in very 
agreeable shapes, like the mosques of the Bosphorus, or are 
prettily painted, and surmounted with a drying-room, shut in 
by trellis-work, after the Oriental style. 

But what strikes 
the stranger with 
greatest surprise, in 
view of the scaven- 
ger duties of the 
^^^^jj#" Seine, is the num- 
^"^^^ ber, beauty, and ex- 
tent of the bathing- 
houses along its 
banks. They merit 




PARISIAN BATHliNG-HOUsE. 



more than a passing notice. 

Commencing with those of the most humble description, 
where, for four sous, the bather has the liberty only of a plunge 




BATHS FOR FOUR SOUS. 



into the dubious stream, towels, drawers, and soap extra, but 
rarely called for, they gradually increase in elegance and price 
until they leave nothing more to be desired in this species of 
luxury. Monsieur, selecting his " cabinet," ensconces himself 



78 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



in the depths of the bathing-tub, not simply for a bath, but to 
tf ke his snuff, read, and doze for the hour too-ether. He makes 




BATHING AT EASE. 



and remakes his bath, nicely graduating the temperature to 
his varying and delightful sensations. But his happiness 
would be incomplete if he could not bestow upon a neighbor, 
at his option, any sudden overflow of volubility. Consequent- 
ly, at the head of every tub there is arranged a slide in the 
partition, opening into the adjoining room. By pushing this 
back he is able to communicate his thoughts and exhibit his 
profile to his similarly engaged neighbor. He finds even this 
social arrangement frequently too restricted for his notions of 
the perfect enjoym.ent of a bath, and has devised double-tubbed 
cabinets, upon the principle of our double-bedded hotel rooms, 
where he can have the sympathizing society of his friend. 
The first bathing-house I saw on this plan was in London. 
Upon expressing my surprise, the proprietor assured me that 
he had so arranged them for the convenience of Frenchmen, 
who preferred bathing in couples. Having since seen so many 
operations of the toilet and matters of private or domestic econ- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



79 



omy performed openly in the public places of Paris, I have 
ceased to be astonished at even this predilection. Indeed, I 
have come to the conclusion that a Frenchman believes it im- 
possible for him to appear at disadvantage under any circum- 
stances connected with his physical self; or else the gregari- 
ous instinct, as with certain animals, is stronger within him 
than what are considered by his neighbors over the Channel 
among the proprieties of life. 

The swirpxming-schools for both sexes are upon a scale of 




80 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

grandeur and luxury in no whit behind the baths. The art of 
living is a very comprehensive branch of Parisian knowledge. 
Every sensual gratification is refined upon to its fullest extent. 
Life is a struggle to extract and elaborate pleasure from every 
object perceptible to the senses, so that to know how to live 
has, in the estimation of a Parisian, attained the dignity of an 
art. He is right so far as the innocent gratifications of the 
varied capacities of enjoyment bestowed upon man by a be- 
neficent Creator are concerned. It is right that we should 
study to cultivate, refine, and multiply our sources of pleasure. 
It becomes criminal, however, when the physical supplants the 
spiritual, and happiness is made to consist in a succession of 
physical excitements or sensual extravagances, by which the 
constitution is gradually undermined, the mental sensibility 
blunted, and moral discrimination destroyed. Frenchmen, 
however, understand too well the physical economy to exhaust 
life. They carefully conserve it, that it may be to them an un- 
failing source of enjoyment to the last. The great age in gen- 
eral attained by their aristocracy, though submerged, as it were, 
in a sea of luxury, attests this fact. We would not deny them 
either the existence of a higher principle in this prolonged 
conservation of health than the mere training of the system 
to preserve its tone and power for physical enjoyment. Still, 
no one can penetrate life at Paris without a painful conscious- 
ness that its idols are those of the flesh and not of the spirit — 
external gratification rather than inward peace. The enjoy- 
ment of life is imbibed. It is strong upon the surface, but 
weaker as it penetrates the interior. Instead of radiating from 
the heart, it is received upon the skin. Antiquity has no ecsta- 
sy to bequeath to it. Even Orientalism can borrow from its 
voluptuous stores. It repudiates the barbarous vices of pagan- 
ism, but revels in the softer and more seductive charms of 
modern atheism, practically denying eternity, that it may wor- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 81 

ship only time. Paris extorts from every American and En- 
glishman the inco*nsistent sentiment that, while they love to 
live amid its delights, yet they would regret to have their na- 
tive cities resemble it. 

But I am forgetting the more amusing pictures of life and 
manners in these swimming-schools. The early morning hours 
are occupied by those who come simply for the love of the art. 
They swim, eat a modest breakfast, and depart. Succeeding 
them, toward noon, are the Sardanapaluses and the Balthazars 
of the school, the gross citizens who come less to bathe than 
to breakfast. The water is nearly deserted. The fumes of 
punch, and coffee, and cigars fill the atmosphere. The ear is 
stunned with the explosion of Champagne corks, and the cries 
" Gar9on, my beefsteak! Gluick with my chicken saute." 
" Yoila ! voila !" After breakfast, a lounge or siesta upon the 
floor or benches. Some go to the swimming-school as they 
would to a masked ball, eccentrically clad, or rather wrapped, 
as Arabs, Turks, Greeks, or Poles. 

The cafe of the swimming-school, of which the " comptoir" 
is always kept by a woman — in some instances the " gardens" 
are women also — is filled with an eating, drinking, and smok- 
ing nude crowd. Cold water is a famous stomachic. One 
would suppose, from the specimens of the human figure here 
exhibited, that these " dames" would forth^with bury them- 
selves deep in the recesses of the remotest convent, that such 
apparitions might never more greet their view. Grog, ab- 
synth, Madeira, and cigars are called for with furious haste. 

At six o'clock the lions deliver themselves into the hands 
of their hair-dressers and corn-cutters, preparatory to their 
conquests upon the Boulevards and Champs Elysees, and to 
dine long and sumptuously at Vefour's, the Trois Freres Pro- 
ven^aux, or the Maison Doree. The aquatic taste of some of 
the bathers changes frequently the cafe of the school into a res- 

D2 



82 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



taurant, and they remain 
here to dine, gazing with- 
out constraint, in their 
simple costume of draw- 
ers, upon the animated 
scene before them. With 
the thermometer at 90° in 
the shade, one can readily 
conceive the charm of 
relinquishing broadcloth 
for the scanty garb of a 
Tahitian, relieving the te- 
dium of a dinner, and stimulating the appetite by an occasion- 
al plunge into the cool river. 

The women have also their baths at four sous, at which, be 
it observed to their credit, on their own testimony, however, 
they preserve an exterior decency not to be seen in the cor- 
responding class of bathing-houses among the males. The fe- 
male bathing-costume is much the same as that in use at New- 




PREPARATION FOR CONQUEST. 



port and Cape May. Oc- 
casionally are added 
ruffled night-caps and 
coiffed hair, which are 
said to have, as can 
readily be conceived, 
a horrible effect. The 
most coquettish embroi- 
der their " pantalons" 
in different colors, and 
wear in the water their 
bracelets and necklac- 
es. The advantage of 
costume, as compared 



.■^'«an 




EN COSTUME. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 



83 




NYMPHS OF THE SEINE. 



with the male bathers, is 

decidedly with the female, 

though even among them, 

it must be ungallantly con- 
fessed, that the modiste's 

art performs wonders. The 

cafe scenes of the male schools are not rivaled in the female. 

Whatever emulation exists of this 
nature is confined to the heroines 
of gallantry and opulent pleasure, 
who hold their bacchanal revels 
apart. As I have lifted the veil 
from the male bathers, impartial 
justice requires at my hands the 
ssame toward the female. Voici! 
As on the pavement, beauty, grace, 
and harmony mingle with age, obe- 
sity, and ugliness — the most delicious 
with the most grotesque and amus- 
ing image. Forgive me, shade of 
But 'tis true, and pity — 'tis true. 




EEADY FOR THE PLUNGE. 



Mohammed ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

SOCIETY AND SHOPPING. 

So susceptible were the Athenians to the influences of ma- 
terial beauty, and the subtle intoxication of the senses, that it 
is said their judges listened only to the pleadings of certain 
orators in the dark, for fear that their judgments should be 
biased by the more powerful eloquence of their extreme come- 
liness, made doubly effective by the winning artifices of the ac- 
complished speakers. This may readily be credited of the court 
that turned aside justice at the artful expose of the charms of a 
courtesan. The Greeks were indeed a race prone to the live- 
liest emotions. F^pecious eloquence easily swayed or excited 
them, under the shadows of those glorious forms of architect- 
ural and statuesque beauty upon which the world, for more 
than two thousand years, has placed the verdict of perfection, 
while transmitting them to posterity under the honorable ap- 
pellation of Grecian Art. The mantle of their sympathy with 
that beauty that appeals so powerfully to the physical and in- 
tellectual, creating from each a species of worship, has fallen, 
in these times, upon Frenchmen. Greece only, of the nations 
of antiquity, was able to give birth to those brilliant combi- 
nations of beauty, grace, and wit, which enthralled alike the 
philosophy of Socrates and the statesmanship of Pericles, and 
made the wisdom and talent of that nation more submissive to 
the caprices of a harlot than to the virtues of a wife. Lais 
n.nd Aspasia have left names as imperishable as the genius 
of the people whose society they adorned, but whose morals 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 85 



they corrupted. France alone, of modern nations, lias devel- 
oped a kindred class of women. I^inon de I'Enclos and Marion 
Delorme inherited alike the accomplishments and vices of their 
Grecian sisters, and it is only in French history or the annals 
of Greece that such reputations could have achieved immor- 
tality. Their beauty M^ould have found worshipers every 
vrhere, but their intellectual fascinations and epicurean refine- 
ments of corruption would have failed elsewhere to make them 
the queens of submissive coteries of wealth, rank, and talent. 
Rome, true to its solitary instinct of force, was capable of add- 
ing a Julia or Messalina to its coarse and repulsive career of 
debauchery, while the merry monarch of modern England was 
compelled to borrow from Paris the female name that most 
graced and disgraced the orgies of his reign. Yle would as 
soon look for the tropic bird in the sea of Okotsk as for a Di- 
ana de Poitiers in the snows of Fi^ussia. The loves of her 
women are nearer allied to Roman lust than Parisian grace. 
Edinburgh and Boston dispute the title of modern Athens, but 
it is in literature and philosophy alone ; while Paris, in every 
feature that constitutes a proud, gay, intellectual, and magnifi- 
cent capital, and, above all, in the skeptical, pleasure-loving, 
beauty-worshiping, sensuous character of its population, can 
justly assert its pre-eminence in all those qualities that have 
made the metropolis of Attica celebrated through all time. 
This affinity between the inhabitants of these two cities is not 
a discovery of the present century ; it was noticed by the 
sharp-witted philosophers of the last. But they failed to ob- 
serve one feature in which the women of Paris can happily 
claim a proud distinction. This they owe to the spiritualizing 
doctrines of Christianity. If their sex have illustrated the 
brilliant union of mere beauty with intellect, they have also 
produced characters, of equal attractions in these points, guid- 
ed by the maxims of a purer morality than Greece ever knew, 



86 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ami subjected to the severer discipline of Christian truth. 
Paris can rival Athens in all that made her women the com- 
panions of her men •, but the glory of Athens rose and set too 
soon to allovi^ her to receive the only doctrine which had pow- 
er to purify it, and render it permanent. 

Women, then, possessing education, beauty, and wit, main- 
tain an empire in Paris unequaled elsewhere in extent and in- 
fluence ; but it is not a power which abides because once pos- 
sessed. To maintain its conquests, unremitting care is required. 
Woman reigns supreme, but her supremacy depends upon her 
legitimate attractions. The beauty of a French woman is 
not so strongly characteristic as that of an English woman, 
German, Italian, or Spanish. It may, but rarely does, pos- 
sess the delicacy of the Anaerican, although it often combines 
the clear complexion, dark hair, and piercing or soft blue eyes 
of the others. It is more of a mosaic than that of other coun- 
tries. But its strength lies rather in her " esprit;'' this is 
never extinguished. Some women drop their beauty as they 
do a garment — all at once ; from being superb they become 
hideous. Others lose it by degrees, and gracefully fall back 
from embonpoint to their hair, from hair to teeth ; these gone, 
the brilliant, speaking eyes remain, conserving stilL all their 
triumphs. As they lose their lustre, and the figure its elas- 
ticity, most women withdraAv from society, as being too dilap- 
idated to add to its attractions, or receive from it enjoyment. 
Not so with French ladies. They skillfully conceal the as- 
saults of time by the arts of the toilet, and retain their power, 
and, if possible, become more attractive, by their inexhausti- 
ble " esprit," into the " spirituel" depths of which they plunge 
as into a fountain of youth. The respect and attention paid 
to age is delightful to witness. Society is not made up merely 
of thoughtless youth, whose highest aim is amusement, but 
parents take the lead, and children are content to follow their 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



87 




A CHARMER AT SIXTY, 



guidance. The art of conversation, as well as that of dancing, 
is cultivated, and soirees and receptions give scope to more 
elevating exchange of thoughts than mere gossip or chit-chat. 
It requires intellectual effort to maintain a good footing in Pa- 
risian society. One must know something, or be a lion, how- 
ever small. Grace of figure and skill of legs are not the only 
needful accomplishments. Society in which the souvenirs of 
Mile, de la Fayette, Madam.es Sevigne and Recamier are cher- 
ished, and a long list of names of either sex, illustrious in all 
that makes a drawing-room brilliant and attractive, is not con- 
tent with the trite and comm.onplace. The past must be ran- 
sacked for its stores of wit, and the future anticipated in its 
progress. "Who, then, is so well fitted to shine in Parisian so- 



88 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ciety as an experienced, intelligent woman? So long as she 
can enter a drawing-room, she never grows old ; her raiemory 
becomes a treasury of anecdotes for the young, of wisdom for 
• adults. Like Madame de la Crequy, at ninety-six years of 
age, she can at once retain the respectful a.dmiration and gal- 
lantry of the Emperor Napoleon and the affection and respect 
of youth. It has been truly said that every statesman, artist, 
poet — in short, every man who has not passed some years in 
the intimacy of old Parisian women, has failed in his education 
of the world. Sooner or later, his life will resent this wrong. 

The secret of their great superiority — so says Leon Gozlan, 
and I believe him — is easily explained. As they grow old, 
they preserve the delicacy of the woman, and acquire the 
good sense of a man. As the wine of which Homer speaks, 
they become honey by the virtue of their years. Living by 
reason alone, they are dead to the passions. No one deceives 
them ; why should they ? There is no longer call for coquet- 
ry, or any thing to gain by flattery. The solid charms of rea- 
son and wisdom gather about them a continual harvest of re- 
spect and attention. But this could not be, had she not pre- 
pared herself to be the guide, companion, and counselor of the 
young — a preparation not to be made by the weak instincts of 
American mothers, which banish them from society to the 
kitchen or nursery, leaving their sons and daughters, in all 
their inexperience and youthful ardor, to the unrestrained in- 
dulgence of their vanities and unfledged emotions, in the per- 
nicious atmosphere of our juvenile ball-rooms. Let us have 
innocence and beauty at our social gatherings, but let them be 
chaperoned by parental care and experience. So shall society 
in America be redeemed from its frivolity to the higher pur- 
poses of intellectual entertainment, and parents and children 
have less reason to complain of mutual neglect. 

I am aware that there is another phase to Parisian society 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



89 



— one, if you please, of lieartlessness and hypocrisy. But in 
these respects, is it worse than fashionable life every where ? 
Parisian society is a firmament of worlds, each revolving in 
its own sphere. Pleasure and interest are the grand magnets 
of attraction in all. Balzac says there are reunions, but no 
society, at Paris. Perhaps he is right ; but nowhere is there 
more enjoyment for the stranger. Provided he is properly 
presented, he can have a wide and varied circle of entrees. 
Once admitted, he is always at home. Introductions are un- 




necessary. It is not always necessary to know the host or 
hostess. One can enter or leave at his option — French leaves 
have become proverbial. They are convenient, certainly, to 
both parties. In this sort of " monde" — for at Paris Madame 
receives her " world," if her callers be fewer in number than 
the satellites of Jupiter — tastes only are consulted in forming 
acquaintances. Within the walls of the salon the world as- 
semble as friends, but part as strangers. " Egalite and frater- 
nite" reign there in their true social sense, restrained only by 
sufficient courtesy to fuse all present into one *' party of pleas- 



90 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ure." Your arm may encircle in the waltz the fairest waist 
in the room, and the tresses of the fairest hair droop languish- 
ingly on your shoulder ; the tips of those delicate fingers may 
tremble within your own, but this does not authorize you to 

know Madame de on the Boulevards, unless with her 

permission. The men of fashion fly from one salon to another 
on the same night — at home with every one — dancing here, 
conversing there, music at one, whist at another ; but once in 
the street, and their memory of all but their associates is at 
once steeped in Lethe. And this is as it should be. "While 
in society, each contributes his individual quota to the general 
enjoyment ; while out, resuming his individual liberty and re- 
tirement. How awkwardly is this managed in the United 
States, where an introduction must follow every casual en- 
counter, and mortal offense be taken at subsequent neglects, 
or forgetfulness of names which no memory of less capacity 
than a Biographical Dictionary can possibly retain. With a 
surplus of political freedom, there is less social liberty among 
Americans than any other nation. 

Paris is pre-eminently the city of shopping. An entire na- 
tion caters to the vagaries of taste of a world, and this capital 
has become the grand magazine where centres every commod- 
ity luxury or necessity can devise. I can not, in conscience, 
add comfort, as this essential ingredient of human happiness, 
in the domestic Anglo-Saxon sense, is but imperfectly under- 
stood. It follows, then, that if shopping has attained the dig- 
nity of a passion with the fairer portion of humanity, as no 
husband, I opine, will be inclined to dispute, the shop-keeper's 
duties have equally bloomed into an art ; a truth no wife will 
gainsay whose experience has been gained in this quarter. 
Napoleon reproached the English with being a nation of shop- 
keepers, and the eagerness of their descendants in the pursuit 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 91 

of the dust or dollar has passed into a proverb throughout ,he 
world. But with either nation it is accompanied by an ener- 
gy of purpose and general integrity that raises their mercan- 
tile character far above that of France. The love of the dol- 
lar there is quite as strong and universal, and the modes of 
securing it more diversified and ruinous to the conscience than 
in England or the United States. In love, success has been, 
since creation, the first article of Cupid's creed, and " all's fair 
in war" is an axiom common to every belligerent. To best 
describe the general trading character of France, I should fuse 
these two principles into one sentiment. So universal is this 
feeling of distrust and expectation of being defrauded, that it 
has resulted in the establishment of "shops of confidence," as 
exceptions to the universal rule. Some are all they pretend 
to be, while others have adopted the title, as many hypocrites 
profess religion, as so much additional capital of character. 
Travelers complain of the extortions of the Bedouins of the 
Desert, but they have far more reason to com.plain of the pub- 
licans and tradespeople of Paris, although in most instances 
the fleecing is so adroitly disguised by complimentary false 
words or lies of interest, that the particular operative is per- 
ceived only in the general depletion of the purse. Parisians 
themselves bewail the general corruption of their trading coun- 
trymen, and propensity to deceive strangers, as a short-sighted 
policy, by no means conducive to the true prosperity of their 
city. It is a sad truth that the standard of mercantile honor 
among the class referred to is lamentably low. In purchasing 
articles with the intention of sending them to the United 
States, I have, with scarcely an exception, been asked by the 
sellers if I did not wish a false invoice made out for the cus- 
tom-house. This sort of cheating seems to be expected as a 
matter of course. 

But that which foreign ladies are called upon to experience 



92 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



is of a different cliaracter, and requires a combination of art 
and tpJent which leaves far in the rear the " cuteness" of the 
Yankee. The character of the customer is known the moment 
her foot enters the shop door. Her purse, desires, fantasies, 
weaknesses, and intentions are generally read at once by the 
experienced caterer to the wants and vanities of female life. 
If not read, they are decoyed on until the desired knowledge 
is extracted. A lady may enter, presuming she has sense, 
tastes, and opinions of her own, and, ten to one, she leaves 
doubly fortified in this opinion, while the flattery and deceit- 
ful eloquence of the clerk has, in reality, been her only guide 
in purchasing twofold more than she originally intended. 
A rich Enirlish or American woman is the most desirable 

gam.e for these Talleyrands 
of the counter. Balzac 
delightfully hits off the 
purse - bred nonchalance 
and counterfeit phlegm 
of the one, and the di- 
plomacy of the other, in a 
sketch which is so true to 
life that 1 can not better 
illustrate this species of 
"shopping" than by giv- 
ing the pith of it. 

An English woman en- 
ters No. — Rue de . 

The clerk approaches her: 
" Does Madame wish an 
India or French shawl ? 
high price or — " 

" I will look at them." 




A PARIS SALESMAN. 



"What sum does Madame consecrate to the purchase V 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 93 

" I will look at them," coldly scanning the clerk through 
her glass. 

" Here are our finest qualities in red, blue, and orange. 
These are ten thousand francs. Here are some at three and 
five thousand." 

The English woman examines them with indifTerence. " You 
have others?" 

" Yes, Madame ; but perhaps Madame has not yet decided 
to take a shawl?" 

" Oh, very decided," 

The clerk disappears, and quickly returns with shawls of an 
inferior price. " These," says he, displaying them with great 
care and solemnity, at the same time giving an almost imper- 
ceptible but significant glance at his fellow-clerks, " these have 
not yet been displayed. They were brought by couriers di- 
rectly from the manufacturers of Lahore." 

" Ah ! I understand. These suit me better. What is the 
price of this one in blue ?" 

" Seven thousand francs." 

She puts it on, looks at herself in the glass, returns it, sim- 
ply remarking, " I do not like it." Half an hour passes in sim- 
ilar fruitless essays. 

" We have nothing more, Madame," says the clerk, looking 
at the head of the establishment. 

" Madame is difficult, as are all persons of true taste," re- 
marks the chief, as he advances toward her with all the graces 
of the shop concentrated in his manner. " I have still one 
shawl which has never been shown. No one has found it to 
their taste ; it is very bizarre, and this very morning I pro- 
posed to give it to my wife. We have had it since 1805. It 
belonged to the Empress Josephine." 

" Let me see it, sir." 

" Go ajid fetch it," orders the chief to his clerk. " It is at 
mv house." 



94 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 

" I shall be very glad to see it," remarks the English woman. 

" It cost sixty thousand francs in Turkey, Madame." 

" Indeed !" 

" It is one of the seven shawls sent by Selim, before his 
catastrophe, to the Emperor Napoleon. The Empress Jose- 
phine, a Creole, as my lady knows, and very capricious, ex- 
changed it for one brought here by the Turkish embassador, 
and purchased by my predecessor. I have never found a price 
for it, for in France our women are not rich enough. It is not 
so in England. Here it is, Madame." 

The chief opens, with a little key, a square cedar box, the sim- 
ple form of which makes a profound impression upon the lady. 
From this box, neatly folded up in black satin, he produces a 
shawl worth about fifteen hundred francs, yellow as gold, with 
black designs, of most extraordinary ugliness and oddity. 

" Splendid !" exclaims the lady ; " it is truly beautiful. It 
is my very ideal of a shawl." 

" The Emperor Napoleon admired it greatly." 

"It is very beautiful, fine, sweet!" exclaims the English 
woman, as the chief artfully and gracefully assists her to try 
it on. " Have you another ?" 

" I have one very fine," tranquilly replies the chief. " It 
came to me from a Russian princess, the Princess JNarzikofi', 
who left it in payment for furnishings for her house. If Ma- 
dame wishes to see it, she will find it a marvel of beauty. It 
is entirely new — has not been unpacked. There is not its 
equal in Paris." 

" I wish much to examine it." 

It is produced with even more mystery than the other, and 
the two shawls, worth three thousand francs, are sold for six 
thousand. The chief quietly selects another from his stock of 
old ones, to play anew the r51e of the Selim shawl in the cedar 
box, and patiently awaits the next English amateur of shawls. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GRISETTES OF PARIS. 

Who has not heard of the Parisian grisette ? Yet who can 
correctly describe her? She is as distinctive a feature of its 
civilization as is slavery of our Southern States. Without 
childhood or age, vi^hence comes she, and whither does she go ? 
We always see her, as the bee, busily gathering honey for her 
little hive, or like the moth, scorching her wings in the flame 
that is destined, before long, to consume her. Sterne would 
have us believe that she is pretty, but there is a vast difference 
between a beautiful woman and a pretty grisette. The former 
may imitate the grisette, but the grisette can never become 
the fine woman. She must live and disappear a grisette. I 
do not say that she is born one, for I fancy her origin can, in 
general, be traced to those state nurseries, the foundling hos- 
pitals, and her disappearance into — God knows what ; but I 
am fearful that the hospitals can disclose a fearful tale, and 
the river record many a fatal leap. Those who survive these 
dangers subside sometimes into delving matrimony, but oftener 
into that class of laborious, repulsive-looking females, who eke 
out a wretched existence in the highways and byways of Paris. 
But it is only of the grisette proper that I would speak, without 
Vfhom the (duartier Latin, Chaumiere, and the modiste's shop 
would equally be blanks, and the student's life a dull level of 
dry study. My fair readers must not suppose that I am intro- 
ducing to their notice an entirely unworthy class of their sex. 
Par from it. Their faults are more the result of their misfor- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




THE GRISETTE. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 97 



tunes than their deiDravity. They are the peculiar growth of 
Paris, and are no more to be blamed for their existence than 
the wild flowers that bloom but to die in the swamp or desert. 
Would you censure them because they have known no homes, 
or have been cradled only in a hospital, to be thrust in all their 
young beauty upon the world as soon as their fingers can earii 
the scanty measure of wine and bread that they call food ? 
If, then, this be their destiny, is it surprising that the ephemer- 
al constancy of a student or clerk should be to them domestic 
bliss, or the excitement of the dance and revel fill hours which 
would otherwise be heavy with despair ? Even in their un- 
sanctioned ties they have often solaced many a heart and sus- 
tained many a head that have later in life won honor for them- 
selves and credit for their nation. Judge them, then, not too 
harshly. If their faults outweigh yours, it is not so certain but 
that their virtues may also. At all events, hear before you 
strike. 

The dress of a grisette is an indescribable mixture of care- 
less neatness, perfectly charming in the tout ensemble, mod- 
estly displaying the advantages of a good, or skillfully conceal- 
ing the defects of a bad figure. Their bonnets, when they 
mount them, are coquettish morsels of pasteboard, covered 
with some fanciful stuff, and jauntily fittmg on the back of 
their heads, leaving the sides and front exposed. Their pret- 
tiness is in their easy air of v/ell-bred assurance and laughing 
features rather than in any regular pretensions to beauty. The 
privations of their eccentric existence are opposed to much 
true delicacy of outline. Their male friends estimate their 
virtues in the ratio of their fidelity, good figure, graceful danc- 
ing, and ability to withstand tobacco smoke. I can not better 
picture the class than by giving a few episodes of their usual 
lives. 

Nanette and Fidele, two belles in their way, are at a stu- 

E 



98 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



dents' supper. It is long and gay. The earnings and allow- 
ance of months are exhausted in as many hours. The mes- 
sieurs commence with filling the chamber with smoke, in 
which operation Nanette assists. Fidele proposes to relate 




an adventure. Her intention is applauded, and silence suc^ 
ceeds the noisy chat. 

" You know my two friends, Blanchette and E/Ougette. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 99 

Well, we three went to the Odeon the other night to see the 
new tragedy. Rougette had just inherited from her grand- 
mother four hundred francs, which made us all feel like so 
many Rothschilds — I mean as rich. We took a pit box, 
Three students were in the parterre, who took it into their 
heads to invite us to supper, under the pretext that we were 
alone ; so, without staying out the piece, we adjourned to Vi- 
ot's with our unknown cavaliers. The gar^on at first insisted 
that they had nothing, doubtful, I suppose, of the depth of our 
purse ; but Rougette, who knew his vv^ays, took the pen and 
ordered a regular marriage supper. Our self-made beaux made 
a slight face at this, but could not object with decency, you 
know. 

" It was soon brought on — a supper good enough for a bride 
from St. Germain. Yv^e then commenced to play the fastidious 
ladies. Nothing was good. Hardly was one dish brought be- 
fore we sent it back and ordered another. * Boy, take away 
this ■, it is intolerable. Where have you learned to make such 
horrors V Ortolans fared no better than omelets. Our un- 
known friends wished to eat, but we v/ere too dainty to allow 
them time for that. Briefly, we grew uproarious, and smash- 
ed a lot of the dishes. 

" Our fun was now at its height. We could hear our three 
gallants whispering to each other to know how they were to 
pay for our follies. One had but six francs, another still less, 
and the third only his watch, which he generously drew from 
his pocket. Their only remedy seemed to be to leave us in 
pledge. After the sample we had given of our habits, Viot 
would have been glad to escape such security. In this state 
of mind, they presented themselves at the bar to negotiate 
some delay. What do you think they replied to them ?" 

" We can't say, with such treacherous guests as you to pro- 
vide for.'* 



100 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

" I will tell you. Rougette, before entering the cabinet, 
had paid all in advance. Imagine, then, their, surprise at the 
answer of Viot, ' Sirs, it is paid.' Our three unknown friends 
looked at us as three dogs regard three bishops, with a piteous 
stupefaction that was perfectly delightful. Feigning not to 
notice it, we left the restaurant and ordered a carriage. ' My 
dear Marquise,' said Rougette to me, ' we must conduct these 
gentlemen home.' * Willingly, my dear Countess,' I replied. 
They declined, but we were inexorable. They refused to give 
their address, but we knew that they lived in the street of the 
' cat that fishes.' Escorting them to their lodgings, we wished 
them good-night, firmly believing that they were intrigued by 
women of fashion." 

Thus, for the pleasure of mystifying three green students, 
Rougette threw away in one night a sum sufficient to have 
supported her for six months. 

A few days after, Rougette, deserted by a wealthy lover, re- 
duced to despair, and weak from long fasting, threw herself 
from the Pont Neuf into the river. She was hauled out by the 
heels by some boatmen, her only exclamation being, as she 
came to, that they had scraped her face against the edge of 
their boat. Another of her class looked curiously on from the 
quay, audibly moralizing after this fashion : " And there are 
some women foolish enough to drown themselves for a man ! 
Pshaw ! a m^an — a thing so rare !" 

Rougette was restored only to consciousness of her utter 
destitution and misery. She was ill besides. One of her sup- 
per companions by chance learned of her distress, and, with 
his last five francs, supplied her with a good dinner, which she 
needed more than miedicine. He was not alone in his char- 
ity, as I will relate. 

Meeting one of his companions, they strolled into the shop 
of a barber, who, besides his legitimate business, advanced 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 101 

money on articles pawned, chiefly-by the necessities of stu- 
dents and grisettes. Armand, who had been the first to suc- 
cor Rougette, had dropped in to pledge his cloak to pay for his 
own dinner. His friend, hearing of the condition of Ptougette, 
audibly vented his indignation against her heartless compan- 
ions, with whom she had so lately sung and danced, for thus 
inhumanly deserting her. The barber, who had been atten- 
tively listening, here broke in : " Not so fast, my friend. Step 
here. You are too severe. I know Mademoiselle Nanette to 
be a most excellent person." " Yes," replied the censor, 
" when it is a matter of drinking and smoking." " Possibly," 
replied the barber ; ^' I do not deny it : young persons must 
laugh, sing, and smoke, but, for all that, they may have a heart 
too. Do you see this dress ?" said he, holding up a thread- 
worn, rusty black silk robe. They knew it at once to be Nan- 
ette's. " Yes, this is her only robe, and she has borrowed of 
me four francs on it, that she may succor Rougette. I have 
had it often. It is dear at that price, but Nanette never fails 
to redeem it." 

Armand's friend felt conscience-smitten. To make amends, 
he redeemed the robe, and took it under his arm, and pro- 
posed that they should call upon Nanette. We shall find her 
in, doubtless, for this is her only dress, the sole relic of a 
better position, when her wardrobe was as extensive as her 
credit. 

They arrived at her house and inquired for her. " Made- 
moiselle," replied the porter, " has gone to mass." " To 
church!" exclaimed Armand: "it is impossible. Let us en- 
ter; we are old friends." "I assure you it is true," replied 
the porter ; " she has been gone these three quarters of an 
hour. She goes every morning to the church of St. Sulpice 
for her devotions, Look I there she is returning. You can 
see for yourselves." 



103 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

True enough, there was Nanette returning from the church. 
Arm and hurried to her, impatient to penetrate the mysteries 
of her toilet. She had on for a robe a petticoat of dark blue 
calico, half hidden under a window-curtain of green serge, 
disposed as a shawl ; her head was prettily hid in her white 
bonnet, and her little feet covered with buskins. She had 
arranged her curtain with so much art that it seemed like 
an old shawl with the fringe hidden, and, even in this 
guise, she proved conclusively that a pretty woman is always 
pretty. 

Alternating thus betv/een the extremes of poverty and rev- 
elry, devotional without acquiring true wisdom, charitable in 
their destitution, and reckless in their prosperity ; attachable 
but fickle, susceptible of the best sentiments of the heart, yet 
priding themselves on their levity, these creatures, like summer 
swallows, skim along the surface of humanity, occasionally 
tasting its joys, more frequently its miseries, but to terminate 
their checkered existence in a garret, with a pot of flowers on 
one side, a crucifix on the other, and straw beneath them, cor- 
rect emblems of their inconsistent lives. Do they ever reflect, 
or is there a demon attached to them that hurries them on 
from one folly to another ? Would the working girls of Amer- 
ica, delivered up to their own guidance, without counsel, sup- 
port, or a home to shelter them, be superior to their sisters of 
Paris 1 Would they be their equals in industry, neatness, 
charity, and cheerfulness 1 We hope and believe so, without 
their habitual lightness and prodigality, which savors more of 
nautical than feminine tastes. I wish I could add that the ill- 
ness of Rougette had brought her reformation. But with 
convalescence beauty came back, and also the baron. Her 
resources were, for the moment, independent of the needle, 
and the next I heard of Nanette and Rougette was that they 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 103 

were seen, choking with laughter, over a supper fit for a prince, 
in a private cabinet at the Maison Doree. 




CHAPTER YL 

THE PRISONS AND PRISONERS OF PARIS. 

No one fails to visit the palaces of France. The pyramids 
of Egypt are not more identified with the history of the world 
than are the Louvre, Versailles, Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and 
St. Cloud. Each has played an important part in the annals 
of this empire, and they now imbody its long series of tri- 
umphs of art and civilization. 

To comprehend its history, it is necessary to explore its pal- 
.ices. The associations of long and troublesome centuries 
cluster densely about them. To enter their halls is to lose 
sight of the present in the resurrection of the past. It is like 
retracing the track of time step by step ; recalling generation 
after generation of kings, courtiers, and subjects, until we see 
once more the legions of Gaul forcing the imperial sway upon 
the gifted but apostate Julian. 

But were we, as is usual, to confine our researches only to 
the, palaces, we should obtain but an imperfect view of the 
glory and shame of France. To complete the picture, it is 
requisite to visit its prisons. They have played an equally in- 
teresting role in its annals ; and rich as the palaces undoubt- 
edly are in all that makes history attractive and instructive, 
the prisons are no less I'ife in warnings and example. Indeed, 
they are inseparably connected ; for, as tiraies were, no palace 
could exist without its prison, and there have been but few 
of the builders of the former that have not, at some interval or 
other of their career, tasted themselves of the bitterness of the 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 105 



chains and confinement they prepared for others. Louis XVI., 
as if imbued with the presentiment that he one day would be- 
come the most wretched of prisoners, was the first monarch 
who deigned seriously to' interest himself in the improvement 
of the prisons. At that time Paris alone contained thirty-two 
prisons of state. Its historians have represented it as being 
a nest of jails — a truth unfortunately but too evident, arising 
from the despotic nature of its feudal institutions, with their 
numerous civil and religious communities, each possessing dis- 
tinct jurisdictions, and rights of high and low justice, with ed- 
ifices destined to receive into their gloomy cells alike the in- 
nocent and guilty, so that aristocratic interest or priestly intol- 
erance justified their captivity. 

The excesses of the Revolution of 1789 have well-nigh ob- 
literated the remembrance of its benefits. Humanity, how- 
ever, is indebted to it for many reforms and concessions to 
natural right and justice. The right to labor was formerly a 
manorial right, granted by the king to those who purchased it. 
A decree of 1791, for the first time since France was a kino-- 
dom, restored to Frenchmen the privileges of the primeval 
curse, and they now all possess the general right to wring the 
sweat from their brows, though each species of labor is still 
girt about with a network of restrictions. 

I know not how others may feel, but as for myself, in visit- 
ing the nucleus of a nation's civilization, I am not content with 
noting only its external glitter. Palaces, parks, galleries, and 
all the outer show of luxury and refinement, form a pleasing 
exhibition, but, if the view extend no farther, a delusive pic- 
ture of the actual condition of the people. We study history 
to ascertain the true progress of man, and our hopes of the fu- 
ture are modified by the lessons of the past. It is not enough 
that we see history only in the garb of rank, or splendor of its 
palaces. We must equally seek it under the humble raiment 

E 2 



106 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

of the laborer in liis lint or home, and in the prisons, which, 
from being mere citadels of private revenge, have at last be- 
come places of detention of criminals of every rank. 

The prisons of Paris are now reduced to eight, under hu- ' 
mane and enlightened supervision. These, with the military 
jails, are the sole survivors of the numerous array of prisons 
that were at once the disgrace of Paris and the scourge of hu- 
manity. To walk its streets with history in hand is to stum- 
ble momentarily over rings of iron, chains, instruments of tor- 
ture, and tumulary stones, the cruel debris of ceils and prisons. 
All who ruled — whether kings, lords, bishops, provosts, or cor- 
porations ; even the holy church, bishops and monks — ail who 
in any way had, by fraud, violence, or even talent, raised them- 
selves above the low standard of humanity, built dungeons, 
and stored them with instruments of torture, ostensibly to re- 
press crime, but in reality to conserve power or inflict re- 
venge. 

The predecessor of the present chateau of the Louvre was 
a jDolitical dungeon. Its tower was called by Louis XL " Le 
plus beau ileuron de la couronne de France ;" Le Cloitre Notre 
Dame of the Church of Saint Germain I'Auxerrois has succeed- 
ed to the prisons of the " Bishop" and " Officialite/' The Place 
du Chatelet echoed often to the groans and complaints of the 
prisoners of the provosts of Paris and of the merchants , while 
there is scarcely a religious edifice raised upon the ruins of a 
monastery that has not its foundations m an ecclesiastical dun- 
geon. Saint Martin des Champs was a prison ; the Sainte 
Chapelle a prison — Sainte Genevieve a prison — Saint Germain 
des Pr^s a prison — Saint Benoit a prison — The Temple a pris- 
on — Saint Gervais a prison — Saint Mery a prison ; indeed, 
wander where you will in old Paris, and your footsteps are 
upon the remains of civil or religious tyranny, the catacombs 
of sectarian or political hate, but now exhibiting only temples 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 107 

of the Prince of Peace. The prison has disappeared — the 
church remains. Humanity has made such an advance that 
we can now scarcely credit the fact that, in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, every convent and monastery had a subterranean stone 
cell, ironically called " vade in pace,'" into which the victim was 
let down, never to reappear alive. Sometimes they were im- 
mediately starved to death, but generally they were supplied 
with coarse food by means of a basket and rope. An abbe of 
Tulle was accustomed to mutilate his prisoners. lie cut off 
the left hand of a man who had appealed to the Parliament 
against him for having cut off his right hand. Such was the 
justice and humanity of the Church of that age. 

Vincennes, from a j)alace, was converted by Louis XI. into a 
prison of state, and has continued ever since to retain its mon- 
grel character of fortress and dungeon. It is the legitimate 
successor of the Bastile, and far more formidable as a means 
of offense to the citizens of Paris than ever was that fortifica- 
tion, yet, under the superior moral power of modern civiliza- 
tion, reduced to an innocent depot of munitions of war. In its 
" donjon" Charles IX. expired in torments of conscience far 
more terrible than those of the rack. Gladly would he have 
exchanged his downy bed for the hole in the stone wall, in the 
" Salle de la (Question," with the heavy iron chains that con- 
fined the limbs of the prisoner while he was subjected to the 
agonies of the " (duestion," could he by so doing have expiated 
by sufierings of body the sins of his soul. But no : the night 
of St. Barthelemi was vividly before him. He wept, he shriek- 
ed, he tore himself, he groaned and sweated in his agony, but 
no relief came. He knelt humbly at the feet of the queen- 
mother, the partner and stimulator of his crimes. He asked 
pardon of the King of Navarre, and with clasped hands ex- 
claimed, " Oh, my nurse ! my nurse ! how much blood ! how 
many murders ! Ah ! I have followed bad counsel. my 



108 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



God, pardon rae — forgive — grant me mercy, if it please Thee ! 
Oh, nurse, help — draw me from this. I do not know where 
I am, I am so agitated, so confused : what will become of all 
this ? AVhat shall I do ? I am lost — I know it well. Oh, 
nurse, nurse, I strangle — I strangle!" It was the blood of 
Coligny and forty thousand of his murdered subjects that suf- 
focated him. 

His ancestor, Louis XL, the friend of the bourgeoisie, but the 
tyrant of the nobles, took a peculiar pleasure in torturing his 
victims of rank. He shut them up in iron cages, and came 




LOUIS XI. VISITING HIS PRISONERS AT VINCENNES. 

often to interrogate, accuse, or insult them. But, with all his 
ingenuity of cruelty, he never arrived at that refinement of in- 
humanity which, in the eighteenth century, doomed the pris- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 109 

oner of state, who had become dangerous by his courage, pa- 
tience, or resignation, to the treatment of a maniac. Such 
were conducted to the hospitals, thrown into close cells, clad 
in strait-jackets, or the " camisole de force," bled, and subject- 
ed to the regimen of the insane, until their minds were extin- 
guished in raging despair or pitiful imbecility. 

The chapel windows of Vincennes contain a full-length por- 
trait of Diana of Poitiers, the beautiful mistress of Henry II., 
painted by his order, entirely naked, amid a crowd of celestial 
beings. The royal ciphers are interlaced with her silver cres- 
cent. It is called a good likeness, and is readily known by 
the blue ribbons with which her hair is bound. 

Sainte Pelagic still exists as a prison, the most ancient of 
Paris, and, singularly enough, retains upon its front the same 
appellation by which it was formerly known as an asylum for 
pious women — the spouses of Christ. It was here that Mad- 
ame Roland expiated her vain theories of political liberty, that 
led both herself and Marie Antoinette to the scaflbld. Here 
Madame du Barri shriekingly resisted her executioners, hav- 
ing incessantly besought Heaven, during her imprisonment of 
two months, to prolong a life still covetous of the pleasures of 
the world. Within its walls the Empress Josephine received 
her first lesson in the vicissitudes of fortune, sustained by the 
prediction that promised her a throne, consoling her compan- 
ions in misfortune with the same grace that won for her in 
power the homage of all hearts. Later it became a prison for 
debtors. An American of the name of Swan has attached a 
souvenir to its dreary wall worthy of perpetual remembrance. 
He was a colonel in the Revolutionary army, the friend and 
compatriot of Washington, and had served with La Fayette in 
our war of Independence. Frequently did the latter bow his 
white hairs beneath the wicket of the jail as he passed through 
to visit his old brother in arms. But it was in vain that he or 



110 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 







MADAME DU BAREI LED TO EXECUTION. 



rich friends souglit to prevail upon him to escape from this re- 
treat. He had had a long lawsuit with a Frenchman, and, 
having lost his cause, preferred to give his body as a hostage 
to paying a sum which he believed not to be justly due. He 
was arrested, and remained twenty years in confinement, lodg- 
ing in a little cell, modestly furnished, upon the second floor. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



Ill 



He was a fine-looking old gentleman, said to resemble in his 
countenance Benjamin Franklin. The prisoners treated him 
with great respect, yielding him as much space as possible for 
air and exercise, clearing a path for him, and even putting 
aside their little furnaces, upon which they cooked their meals, 
at his approach, for fear that the smell of charcoal should be 
unpleasant to him. 

He had won their love by his considerate and uniform be- 
nevolence. Not a day passed without some kind act on his 
part, often mysterious and unknown in its source to the recip- 
ient. Frequently a poor debtor knocked at his door for bread, 
and, in addition, obtained his liberty. Colonel Swan had 




COLONIEIL. SWAN AT THE SAINTE PELAGIE. 



112 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

means, but lie applied them to the release of others and not 
of himself. Once a fellow-prisoner, the father of a nuraerous 
family, imprisoned for a debt of a few hundred francs, applied 
to be received into his service at six francs a month. Colonel 
Swan had lost his servant, and inquired into the history of the 
new candidate. Upon learning it, he replied, "I consent;" 
and, opening his trunk, counted out a pile of crowns, saying, 
" Here are your wages for five years in advance ; should your 
work prevent you from coming to see me, you can send your 
wife." Such deeds were often renewed. 

One creditor only retained the venerable captive, hoping 
each year to see his resolution give way, and each year call- 
ing upon him with a proposal for an accommodation. The 
director of the prison, the friends of Colonel Swan, even the 
jailers, urged him to accept the proposed terms, and be re- 
stored to his country and family. Politely saluting his cred- 
itor, he would turn toward the jailer, and simply say, " My 
friend, return me to my chamber." Toward the end of the 
year 1829, his physician had obtained for him the privilege of 
a daily promenade in one of the galleries of the prison, where 
he could breathe a purer atmosphere than that to which he 
had long been subjected. At first he was grateful for the fa- 
vor, but soon said to the doctor, " The inspiriting air of liberty 
will kill my body, so long accustomed to the heavy atmos- 
phere of the prison." 

The revolution of July, 1830, threw open his prison doors 
in the very last hour of his twentieth year of captivity. After 
the triumph of the people, he desired to embrace once more 
his old friend La Fayette. He had that satisfaction, upon the 
steps of the Hotel de Yille. The next morning he was dead. 

Clichy has succeeded Sainte Pelagic as a debtors' prison. 
To the rich debtor it has but few terrors, though the law oi 
France places his personal freedom at the disposition of his 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 113 



creditors. Some may, like Colonel Swan, refuse to pay from 
principle, others from whim or obstinacy. Of the latter was 
a noble Persian, Nadir Mirza Shah. Rich, young, and dissi- 




pated, he plunged into every species of folly, and finally flog- 
ged his coachman, who summoned him before the civil tribu- 
nal, which sentenced him to three months' imprisonment and 
damages. Refusing to pay, he was confined in the debtors' 



114 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

jail, where he passed some time carousing with his friends 
and voluntary companions in captivity, and surrounding him- 
self with Oriental luxury. Mattresses served for tables and 
divans ; they sat a la Turque, ate with their fingers, and, for- 
getting the Koran, drank wine like Christians. Nadir Mirza 
Shah was as intractable in requiring of his companions the 
rigid observance of Persian etiquette as he was in refusing to 
pay the damages due the unlucky coachman, who, in his eyes, 
was simply a dog of an infidel. 

Clichy possesses a rich fund of individual eccentricities and 
curious anecdotes, such as only Parisian life can develop. In 
1838, a tailor of the Rue de Helder caused the Count de 

B , a noble Dalmatian, to be confined for a debt of six 

thousand francs. He remained five years in prison, passing 
the entire time in his chamber. Not once did he descend into 
the garden, nor did he ever walk in the corridors. Whenever 
spoken to, he replied with great courtesy, but he never entered 
the cells of his companions, or invited them to visit him. 
During the five years of his imprisonment he was not once 
seen to open a book, to read a newspaper, or to do any work 
whatever. Pie passed entire days standing before his win- 
dow, in full dress, with his coat buttoned to his throat. His 
linen had given out, but his boots were scrupulously polished 
each morning by a fellow-prisoner. He never bathed, but 
his handsome black beard was always carefully combed and 
perfumed as if he was going to a ball. Two letters only 
reached him, and two visitors only called during these five 
years. 

The first time, about two years after his incarceration, his 
creditor appeared at the wicket, and the following conversa- 
tion ensued : 

" Monsieur Count, you have done me the honor to send for 
me ; what can I do for you?" 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 115 



" Sir, I have exhausted my personal resources ; a gentleman 
like myself can not live on the prison allowance of sixteen sous 
per day. Since you believe me good for six thousand francs, 
I will pay you a greater sura when I have sold my estates in 
Dalmatia." 

" That appears just, Monsieur Count : how much do you de- 
sire ?" 

" I wish fifty francs a month." 

" You shall have them. I am too happy to be useful to you. 
Is that all you desire ?" 

" Absolutely all; and I am very grateful to you." 

" Do not speak of that, I beg of you ; I am your servant, my 
dear Monsieur Count." 

During three years the fifty francs a month were regularly 
supplied by the tailor. 

In 1843 the tailor reappeared, followed by two porters car- 
rying a heavy trunk. 

" Monsieur Count," said he, " I have received the letter with 
which you honored me, and I accept your propositions. I 
place you at liberty, and I have brought you effects suitable to 
your rank. You will find, also, a watch, chain, pins, rings, eye- 
glass — every thing of the best description. Here is a purse of 
five hundred francs in gold for the fifteen days that you desire 
to pass in Paris for relaxation. These five hundred francs are 
for your petty expenses, for I have taken the liberty to pay in 
advance for an apartment and domestic at your orders in the 
Hotel des Princes. My notary is coming, and we will arrange 
the security for all miy advances, now amounting to eighteen 
thousand francs, to which it will be necessary to add three 
thousand francs that I shall give my clerk, who, at the expira- 
tion of the fortnight, will post to Dalmatia with you, paying 
your joint expenses, and bringing me back my money." 

The contract was duly signed, and the release given. The 



JIG PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRLNCIPLES. 

Count faithfully amused himself during his carnival of fifteen 
days, according to his stipulation. On the sixteenth he left 
with the clerk, who never had made a more agreeable journey ; 
but on his return he was obliged to announce to the munifi- 
cent tailor that, owing to previous incumbrances on the estates 
of the Count, it was extremely doubtful whether he would ever 
receive a hundred crowns for his twenty-one thousand francs. 
Imprisonment for debt, like most cruel remedies for social 
misfortunes, seldom attains the desired end. An honest man 
will pay if he can ; a dishonest one can evade justice even 
within prison walls ; and for the unfortunate it becomes a 
double evil. It was powerless to open Colonel Swan's purse, 
because its strings were tied by principle. It was equally fu- 
tile in contact with the obstinacy of Nadir Mirza Shah, who 
preferred his prejudices to his freedom, and chose rather to 
carouse in the cell of a jail than to wound his pride by paying 
a fine which would have transferred his festivity to a palace. 
The tailor shut up the count in close confinement for five years 
for six thousand francs, and at the end of the time was swin- 
dled by him out of twenty-one thousand. These cases are 
characteristic of a large class. But the pains and penalties of 
incarceration fall heaviest on the poor debtors, whom misfor- 
tune has pursued with a heavy hand until they are left pow- 
erless for exertion in the grasp of avarice, or withered in heart 
and mind by the exactions of inflexible severity. The race of 
Shylocks will never expire except with the razing of dungeons 
for debtors. The thoroughly vicious are seldom caught. To 
the unfortunate it becomes a living tomb. Respectability is 
blighted, enterprise chamed,the mind paralyzed, and the poor 
debtor is reduced to a chrysalis statCo He is fortunate if his 
better qualities and intelligence are not extinguished in the 
heavy atmosphere of his cell, or transformed into mischievous 
tendencies or reckless desires, while his destitute family are 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 117 

left a prey to vice or want. Clichy, from its first days, has 
been stained with the blood of suicides, and haunted with the 
ravings of maniacs. One poor workman, who had seen sold 
for a debt of three hundred francs his humble furniture, and 
even the clothes of himself and his wife and infants, was here 
confined, after being divested of every thing but his naked 
arms wherewith he could gain a subsistence for his family. 
By what process these'were to supply them with food, and to 
pay his debt when confined between the stone walls of a cell, 
none but a bowelless creditor could conceive. Despair over- 
came his reason. He was found the next morning covered 
with gore, and the name of his creditor traced with a bloody 
hand on the walls of his cell. 

Confinement for debt is bad enough of itself, but in France 
it is aggravated by unnecessary restrictions and a penurious 
aliment. The law allows eighteen cents a day for the debtor's 
subsistence, or thirty francs a month, which he is obliged to 
divide daily as follows : 

Cents. 

Hire of furniture 5 

The right to warm his feet at a common fire 1 

Barber 1 

Washing 2 

Light , 1 

Food 8 

Tb 
Such are the resources of the poor debtors. What propor- 
tion of these can be withdrawn for families it would puzzle 
the wants of even a Liliputian to decide. The number annu- 
ally confined in Clichy is 580 to 600, of whom about one fourth 
are single persons, and over two thirds have children. Wives 
are separated from husbands by being confined in a separate 
building. They are allowed no intercourse, except in a com- 
mon parlor, in the presence of a guardian. 



/ 
118 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

Another anomalous feature of this system is, that the di- 
rector of the prison becomes pecuniarily responsible in case of 
the escape of one of his prisoners. This is rarely attempted, 
as the chances of final escape are very limited in a city like 
Paris. Mr. G., one of the directors, said to the Prefect of the 
Police, who had reminded him of his pecuniary responsibility, 
" I am able to respond for a few thousand francs, and I should 
satisfy the obligation if the debt was small ; but if, notwith- 
standing my vigilance, a debtor of a hundred thousand francs 
should escape, I should open immediately the gates to all oth- 
ers. It is as well to be responsible for several millions as for 
a hundred thousand francs, if one can no more pay the lesser 
sum than the greater." 

It is a significant fact in the annals of imprisonment for debt 
in the Department of the Seine, that of 2566 debtors discharged 
during six years, 307 only owe their enlargement to the pay- 
ment of their debts. 

The souvenirs of the prisons of Paris include the history of 
France. It were well if, with the disappearance of the walls 
of La Force, all its deplorable associations could have been as 
readily erased. Not one stone of the Bastile has been left 
upon another. A column of liberty announces the site of that 
fortr^ess of tyranny ; yet no existing prison of stone and mortar, 
with its iron gates and gloomy cells, in all their dreadful real- 
ity, stands half so conspicuous to the eye as that which is pal- 
pable to the imagination. It will exist as the emblem of tyr- 
anny througli all ages, and yet its history is not worse than 
that of numerous others. Indeed, democracy owes it some 
gratitude ac the instrument by which aristocracy, in accom- 
plishing its selfish designs, often avenged upon kindred blood 
the wrongs of the people. 

The dungeons of the Abbaye were the handicraft of monks. 
The architect, Gomard, in 1635, completed the abbey, but re- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 119 



fused to build the prison. He carried his ojDposition so far as 
to prevent any laborers from engaging in the work. " My 
brothers," cried the superior, " it is necessary to finish what 
the obstinacy of the architect refuses to achieve. Let us put 
our own hands to the work, build the jail, and complete 
sacred edifice." The brothers obeyed. 



our 




THE MONKS BUILDING THE ABBAYE PRISON. 

In those days every spiritual and temporal power had the 
privilege of placing in the pillory those declared culpable by 
its special laws. There was not a corporation but had its dis- 



120 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

tinct code, judges, executioners, racks, and prisons. The old 
historian, Sauval, has left a list of twenty-four distinct juris- 
dictions which possessed the right to condemn men to the gal- 
lows, and the city of Paris to-day divided into numerous mu- 
nicipal divisions, had then for the limits of its subdivisions as 
many gibbets. The discipline of the Holy Catholic Church of 
that century required a dungeon, or a " vade in pace,''^ no less 
than its faith the emblem of the cross. If they ever abused 
their power by the persecution of the innocent, fearfully did 
they expiate their want of charity in the slaughter of their 
brethren on this very spot, on the 2d of September, 1792. 
Externally and internally, it is the m.ost gloomy of all the pris- 
ons of Paris. It contains several subterranean dungeons, the 
same, perhaps, on which the old monks worked. 

It was here that Mademoiselle de Sombreuil won from the 
murderers of September the life of her father, at the price of 
drinking a glass of warm blood fresh from their still writhing 
victims. 

The most touching souvenir of this prison is that of the ven- 
erable Cazotte, who was also saved by his daughter under cir- 
cumstances more grateful to humanity on either side. The 
evening before, she had obtained leave to remain with him, 
and had, by her beauty and eloquence, interested several of 
his guards in his fate. Condemned, at the expiration of thirty 
hours of unremitting slaughter, he stepped forth to meet his 
fate. As he appeared in the midst of his assassins, his daugh- 
ter, pale and disheveled, thrcAV her arms about him, exclaim- 
ing, " You shall not reach my father except through my heart!" 
A cry of pardon was heard, and repeated by a hundred voices. 
The murderers allowed her to lead away her father, and then 
coolly turned to recommence their work of slaughter upon less 
fortunate prisoners. 

A little later, Cazotte, separated from his daughter, became 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCPI PRINCIPLES. 121 




MADEMOISELLE EE SOMBREUIL SAVING HER FATHER. 

the victim of the Revolution, whose excesses he had so faith- 
fully predicted. The sketch by La Harpe of the dinner-scene, 
in which his prophecy is made to appear, is one of the most 
remarkable and graphic, scenes in French literature. 

" It seems to me but yesterday," says La Harpe, " and, not- 
withstanding, it was the commencement of 1788. We were 
at dinner at one of our fellow-members of the Academy, a 
great lord and wit. The company was numerous, and of every 
class — courtiers, lawyers, men of letters, academicians, kc. 
The fare was rich, according to custom. At the dessert, the 



122 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

wines of Malvoisie and Constance added to the gayety of the 
company that sort of freedom in which one does not always 
guard a perfectly correct tone, for it was then allowable to do or 
say any thing that would call forth a laugh. Chamfort had read 
to us his impious and libertine tales, and the grand ladies had 
listened without even having recourse to a fan. Then there 
arose a deluge of pleasantries and jokes upon religion: one 
cited a tirade of the Pucelle ; another recalled the philosophic 
verses of Diderot. The conversation became more serious. 
They spoke with admiration of the revolution which Yoltaire 
had made, and all agreed that it was his first title to glory. 
' He has given a book to his century which is read as well in 
the ante-chamber as the salon.' One of the company related 
to us, choking with laughter, that his barber had said to him, 
as he was powdering him, ' Do you see, sir, although I am 
but a miserable hair-dresser, I have no more religion than any 
one else?' They all concluded that the Revolution would not 
be slow to perfect its work ; that it was absolutely necessary 
that superstition and fanaticism should yield to philosophy, 
and that all they had to do was to calculate the epoch when 
they would see the reign of reason. 

" One only of the company had not taken part in the levity of 
the conversation, and had even let drop quietly some pleasant- 
ries upon our fine enthusiasm. It was Cazotte, an amiable and 
original man, but, unhappily, infatuated with reveries of the 
future. He took up the conversation in a serious tone. ' Mes- 
sieurs,' said he, ' be content ; you will all see this grand and 
sublime revolution that you desire so much ! You know that I am 
somewhat of a prophet : I repeat it to you, you will all see it !' 

" Here the company shouted ; they joked Cazotte ; they 
teased him ; they forced him to foretell of each what he knew 
in this coming revolution. Condorcet was the first that pro- 
yoked hira ; he received this mortal answer : 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 123 



"'Ah! we will see,' said Condorcet, with his saturnine, 
mocking air ; 'a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a proph- 
et.' ' You, Monsieur de Condorcet,' replied Cazotte, ' you will 
expire extended upon the pavement of a cell ; you will die by 
poison which you will have taken to cheat the executioner — ■ 
the poison which the happiness of that time will force you al- 
ways to carry about you.'" 

They were somewhat astonished at this species of pleas- 
antry, spoken in so serious a tone, but soon began to reassure 
themselves, knowing that the good man Cazotte was subject 
to dreams. This time it was Chamfort that returned to the 
charge with a laugh of sarcasm. He received an answer in 
his turn. 

" You, Monsieur Chamfort, you will cut your veins with 
twenty-two strokes of the razor, and, notwithstanding, you will 
not die until some months after." 

Then it was the turn of Yicq d'Azir, M. de Nicolai, De Bail- 

ly, De Malesherbes, De Roucher, all of whom were present. 

.Each who touched Cazotte received a shock in return, and 

each shock was a thunder-stroke that killed him. The word 

scaffold was the perpetual refrain. 

" Oh ! it's a wager," cried they on all sides ; " he has sworn 
to exterminate us all." " No, it is not I that have sworn it." 
"But shall we then be subjected by the Turks or Tartars?" 
" Not at all ; I have already told you. You will then be gov- 
erned by the only philosophy, by the only reason.'''' 

The turn of La Harpe arrived, although he had purposely 
kept himself somewhat apart. 

" Plenty of miracles," said he, at length, " and you put noth- 
ing down to me." "You will see there" (replied Cazotte to 
him) " a miracle not the least extraordinary : you will then 
become a Christian.''^ 

At this word Christian, in such an assembly of scoffers, one 



124 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

can imagine the exclamations of laughter, mockery, and deri- 
sion. 

"Ah!" replied Chamfort, "I am reassured: if we are not 
to perish until La Harpe becomes a Christian, we shall be im- 
mortal." 

Then came the turn of the ladies. The Duchess of Gram- 
mont took up the conversation. 

" As for that," said she, " we are very happy, we women, to 
pass for nothing in the revolutions. When I say nothing, it is 
not that we do not m:ix a little in them ; but it is understood 
that they do not take notice of us and our sex." " Your sex, 
Madame" (it was Gazette who spoke), " will be no defense this 
time. It will be in vain that you do not mingle in them ; you 
will be treated as men, without any distinction whatever," 

One can readily conceive the finale of this dialogue. Here 
it became more and more dramatic and terrible. Cazotte ar- 
rived by steps to cause greater ladies than duchesses to feel 
that they would go to the scaffold — princesses of the blood, 
and even more exalted rank than the princesses themselves. 
This passed being a play. All pleasantry ceased. 

" You will see" — another essay of irony by the Duchess of 
Grammont — " that he will not leave me even a confessor." 
" No, Madame, you will not have one — neither you nor any 
person. The last victim who, by an act of grace, will have 
one, will be — " 

He stopped a moment. " Indeed ! who then is the happy 
mortal that will enjoy this prerogative ?" Cazotte slowly re- 
plied, " It is the last that will remain to him, and this person 
will be the King of France. ^^ 

The master of the house arose brusquely, and every one 
with him, but not before Cazotte had predicted his own death 
by the executioner. 

What a subject for a painter ! The assemblage of these 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 125 

master- wits of France at the festive board, unconsciously scoff- 
ing at the fate then ripe to swallow them in its inexorable 
jaws; a modern Belshazzar-feast, mocking at the Daniel that 
foretold the coming tempest, and awakening only from their 
dream of philosophy and reign of reason to find themselves in 
prison or on a scaffold. The prophecy was true. La Harpe 
has, in his narrative, given it strength and effect ; but, as he 
justly remarks, their several destinies were more marvelous 
than the prophecy La Harpe became a Christian, and sur- 
vived the Reign of Terror and the Dynasty of Reason. 

Of all the prisons of Paris, the Conciergerie is the most in- 
teresting, from its antiquity, associations, and mixed style of 
architecture, uniting, as it were, the horrors of the dungeons of 
the Middle Ages with the more humane system of confinement 
of the present century. It exhibits in its mongrel outline 
the progressive ameliorations of humanity toward criminals 
a:^d offenders, forming, as it were, a connecting link between 
feudal barbarity and modern civilization. As an historical 
monument, it is unsurpassed in interest by any other of this 
capital. Situated in the heart of old Paris, upon the He de la 
Cite', separated from the Seine by the dual de THorologe, it is 
one of a cluster of edifices pregnant with souvenirs of suffi- 
cient importance in the annals of France for each to supply a 
volume. These build mgs are the " Sainte Chapelle,'" the Pre- 
fecture de Police, and the Palais de Justice, formerly the resi- 
dence of the French monarchs. The Conciergerie, which de- 
rives its name from concierge^ or keeper, was anciently the 
prison of the palace. It is now used chiefly as a place of 
detention for persons during their trial. The recent altera- 
tions have greatly diminishe.d the gloomy and forbidding ef- 
fect of its exterior, but sufficient of its old character remains 
to perpetuate the associations connected with its former uses, 
find to preserve for it its interest as a relic of feudalism. The 



136 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

names of the two turrets flanking the gateway, Tour de Cesar 
and Tour Boubec, smack of antiquity. Compared with Csesar, 
however, its age is quite juvenile, being under nine hundred 
years. At the east corner there is a tall square tower, con- 
taining a remarkable clock, the first seen in Paris, the move- 
ments of which were made in 1370 by Henry de Yic, a Ger- 
man. It has been recently restored, and is one of the most 
curious bijoux of sculpture which have been bequeathed to us 
by the revdval of the arts. 

In this same tower hung the bell, known as the " tocsin du 
Palais," which repeated the signal for the massacre of St. Bar- 
thelemi, given from the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois. 
The low grated gateway through which passed those con- 
demned to die upon the Place de Greve still exists. The 
Bridge of Sighs has not been witness to more anguish of mind 
and physical torture than this same ominous dungeon door. 
The aspect of this portion of this ancient prison — its dark cor- 
ridors, with their low, ponderous vaulted roofs, and arched 
staircases — is peculiarly sinister, suggesting the mysterious 
horrors of a political inquisition, unexcelled in this respect by 
the entrances to the subterranean dungeons of the Doges of 
Venice. 

The people of Paris, through all time, will bear the reproach 
of the massacres of September, 1792, the horrors of which are 
indelibly affixed to this jail. But impartial justice will recall 
the fact that, five centuries previous, a Duke of Burgundy per- 
petrated within its walls a still more fearful slaughter of his 
imarmed and unresisting countrymen, destroying by smoke and 
fire those that he could not reach by the sword. 

There is a retributive justice to be traced in the history of 
every institution resulting from the inhumanity of man to his 
fellow-man that carries with it a warning as legible as the 
"iVIe;ie, Mene, Tekel, Vpharsiri'' on the palace walls of Babylon. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. X'ZT 




TKE C0NCI3RGERIE. 



The Conciergerie was for centuries the stronghold and prison, 
of feudalism, and the repository of its criminal justice o It was 



138 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

stored with its diabolical inventions to rack human nerves and 
to excruciate human flesh, agonizing the body so that the soul 
should disown truth, or that shrinking humanity should be 
forced to confess crimes which otherwise would have slum- 
bered unrevealed until the day when all secrets will be dis- 
closed. It faithfully served its aristocratic builders; but when 
Louis XL, and, later, the Cardinal Richelieu, succeeded in 
erecting a kingdom of France upon the ruins of feudal power, 
the Conciergerie received into its cells its late lords, and 
avenged in their fall the blood that they had so often spilled. 

A description of the va,rious instruments of torture which 
were employed even as late as the latter part of the reign of 
Louis XVL, scarcely sixty years since, by the judiciary of 
France, would now be received with incredulity. Yet this spe- 
cies of human butchery is so recent, and was so long sanction- 
ed by the highest civil and religious authorities, that one may 
readily be pardoned for a shudder at its recollection, not with- 
out a fear that human nature might, in one of its avenging par- 
oxysms, recall so terrible an auxiliary of hate. 

By a singular freak of time, the oldest legible entry in the 
archives of the Conciergerie is that of the incarceration of the 
regicide Ravaillac, dated 16th May, 1610. His sentence, pro- 
nounced by Parliament on the 27th of May, was as follows : 
" To be conducted to the Place de Greve, and there, upon a 
scaffold, to have his breasts, arms, thighs, and calves of his legs 
lacerated with red-hot pincers, his right hand, which had held 
the knife with which he committed the said ' parricide,' to be 
burned off in a fire of sulphur, and into all his wounds to be 
thrown melted lead, boiling oil, burning pitch, and wax and 
sulphur mingled. This done, his body to be drawn and dis- 
membered by four horses, and afterward consumed by fire, and 
his ashes thrown to the winds." Such were the tender mer- 
cies of the Parliament of France in 1610, repeated with aggra- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 129 

vated horrors, more than a century later, upon Damiens by the 
Bourbon ^'Bien Aime.''^ It is necessary to recall to mind the ju- 
dicial barbarities perpetrated in the name of justice in this 
country, that we may rightly appreciate the services rendered 
humanity in their abolition by the philosophy that gave birth 
to the devolution ; in this instance the more conspicuous, 
when we reflect that religion had long lent to them addition- 
al terror by its perverted sanction. The iron collar of Ravail- 
lac, and the tower of Damiens, at present the warming-room 
of the prison, still serve to transmit to posterity the double 
recollection of their crimes and the appalling tortures to which 
they were subjected previous to their final execution. Their 
diabolical ingenuity has failed to stay a single attempt on " sa- 
cred majesty," as almost every ruler of France has since re- 
peatedly borne witness ; so that now the inheritors of the 
" divine right" content themselves by simply bestowing upon 
their assassins the sudden death which is the just penalty of 
their crime. 

The Conciergerie has repeatedly borne witness to the lofty 
resolution and unshaken firmness of woman — the result, it 
must in sorrow be confessed, as often of hardened guilt as of 
conscious innocence. It is strange that virtue and vice, in the 
extremity of death, should so nearly resemble each other. I 
am tempted to give a few examples, leaving to the reader his 
own inferences upon the strange problem of human nature. 

In 1617, Eleonore Galiga'i, the wily and ambitious confidante 
of Marie de Medicis, fell a victim to stronger arts than her 
own. Corruption, treachery, prostitution of honors, treasure, 
and employments, were all practices too common with the ac- 
cusing courtiers and great lords for them to venture to con- 
demn her upon such grounds. Not one was to be found to 
cast the first stone of a just condemnation. The Parliament 
accused her of Judaism and sorcery. In the chamber of tor- 

F 2 



130 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



ture they asked her if she were really possessed. She replied 
that she had never been possessed except with the desire to 
do good. She was then asked if she had sorcery in her eyes. 
"The only sorcerj?'," said she, laughing, " that I am guilty of, 
is the sorcery of wit and intelligence." 

Certain books having been found at her hotel, they ques- 
tioned her in regard to their character. " They serve to teach 
me that I know nothing." Next they sought to discover by 
what sacrilegious means she had acquired her influence over 
the queen. She replied that she had " subdued a weak soul 
by the strength of her own," 




EXECUTION OF ELEONORE GALISAI. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 131 

Such replies being little edifying to her successors in in- 
trigue and chicanery, they destroyed the tongue they could not 
subdue by giving her head to the axe. 

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, political hate, 
or private interest and revenge, had taken the more subtle and 
less conspicuous shape of impoisonment. The crime was aris- 
tocratic, and so -were its victims. The person who affrighted 
Paris with the first pinch of the ^'poudre de succession'' was a 
lady and a "Marquise." In 1680, the common talk of Paris 
and Versailles was of poisons and their effects. Deaths were 
frequent and mysterious, the causes so subtile as to elude de- 
tection. It was finally discovered that the vender of the poison 
was a woman known by the name of La Yoisine. She had 
succeeded to the fatal secrets of the laboratory of Madame de 
Brinvilliers, the " Marquise," who four years before, after be- 
ing subjected to torture, had expiated her crimes on the scaf- 
fold. It was now the turn of La Yoisine. Unlike the Mar- 
quise, who was beautiful, spirituelle, and accomplished, she 
was gross, ugly, and brutal. The Marquise feared the torture, 
and confessed all, and perhaps more crimes than she had com- 
mitted. La Yoisine, on the contrary, scoffed at the instru- 
ments of torture, and mocked alike the judges and execution- 
ers. She seemed exalted above fear or sufiering by the very 
enthusiasm of wickedness. No martyr to religion ever show- 
ed more firmness and indifference to all that is most appall- 
ing to human nerves. She even accused herself of impossible 
crimes in the excitement of her depraved pride, glorifying her- 
self by the intensity of her abominable passions. She joked 
with the lieutenant of police ; she laughed at her keepers ; 
she drank with the soldiers that watched her ; she spat in 
contempt upon the engines of torment ; she parodied modesty 
by an indecent arrangement of her dress ; she sang, for fear 
that they would pity her ; she insulted the tribunal when in- 



132 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



terrogated ; she blasphemed if they spoke of God ; she cursed 
when she feared that she should faint under the torture ; she 
did ail that it was possible for human depravity to do, exhaust- 
ing in its folly and crime the very dregs of sin. 

When the pfficers entered the chamber of torture of the 
Conciergerie to read her sentence, she bowed herself as inde- 
cently as possible, almost touching the earth, and coolly said, 
" Gentlemen, I salute you," and then proceeded to interrupt 
the recital with songs, blasphemies, and insults. 

" You are condemned," said the president, " for impieties, 
poisonings, artifices, misdeeds, thefts, and complots against the 
lives of persons, for sacrilege, and other crimes without num- 
ber, such as homicide in fact and intention, as culpable of 
diabolical practices and treason — to make honorable amends 
at the door of Notre Dame — " 

" A wonder !" cried La Voisine ; " we shall see the devil in 
the holy water — " 

" And to be conducted to the Place de Greve to be burned, 
and your ashes thrown to the wind." 

" Which will waft them to hell, I hope," exclaimed the in- 
corrigible woman. 

" You are also condemned to submit to renewed torture, to 
extract from you the name of accomplices not yet given." 

" You have only to choose them among your great lords and 
noble ladies. Have they not prevented me by their folly from 
continuing my own profession of an accoucheur ? They com- 
menced by asking of me secrets of the future, and I have 
drawn their cards, and given them the most brilliant horo- 
scopes ; they then demanded of me ^ jioles de jeunesse,^ and I 
have sold them pure water under the guise of water of youth. 
They have asked of me some grains of that powder of suc- 
cession which succeeded so well with Madame de Brinvilliers, 
and I have given them my strongest poisons. You now know 
all my accomplices." 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 133 

" And, finally," continued the judge, " you are condemned 
to submit to the torture extraordinary." 

" I shall answer the best I can, Monsieur Judge. Bind me 
with my hands behind my back ; lash my legs with cords ; lay 
me down upon the wooden horse" (an instrument of torture) ; 
" torture me at your leisure : I will continue to laugh, to blas- 
pheme, to sing, regretting all the while that you do not put a 
little wine in your water." (The species of torture was to 
cause the prisoner to swallow several quarts of water by 
means of a little stream trickling slowly into the mouth.) 
" Go on ! courage ! Judge and executioner, I am ready." 

" First pot of water for the torture ordinary," said the judge, 
making: a sio;n to the executioner. 

" To your health !" replied La Yoisine. 

The " question" was begun by two large pints of cold water 
turned, drop by drop, into the mouth of the criminal. When 
the jug was emptied, they turned three spokes of the wooden 
horse, elongating the limbs until the tendons were ready to 
snap. 

" You are right, my friends : one should grow at all ages. 
I always grumbled at being too small. I wish to be as large 
as my sister Brinvilliers." 

" Second pot of the ordinary," ordered the judge. 
" May God render it back to you," exclaimed the poisoner. 
They emptied the second jug. The horse was stretched 
anew. The bones of the old woman cracked and snapped 
under the torture. Seven jugs of water were successively 
emptied down her throat, drop by drop — one continuous stran- 
gulation — a hundred deaths condensed into a few hours. 
Upon the advice of the physician, La Voisine was resuscitated. 
They placed her upon a mattress near the fire. If the gradual 
insensibility of the criminal had been protracted torture, the 
slow revival was a greater agony. 



134 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

Returned to her cell at midnight, La Voisine sought daily to 
pass her time in riotous indulgences. She had swallowed 
fourteen pints of water ; she dem.anded to drink fourteen bot- 
tles of wine. 

It is to Madame de Sevigne that we are indebted for a nar- 
rative of her last moments. True to her fanaticism of wick- 
edness, she feasted with her guards, sang drinking songs, and, 
mangled as she was in every limb, spared not herself from the 
most scandalous excesses of debauchery. It was in vain that 
they attempted to recall her to serious thoughts, and recom- 
mended that she should chant an Ave or a Salve ; she chanted 
both in derision, and then slept. Neither force nor torture 
could wring from her the required confession ; even when 
chained to the fatal pile, she swore constantly, and contrived 
five or six times to throw off from her the burning straw with^ 
which she was enveloped, but at last the fire prevailed ; she 
was lost to sight, and her cinders borne aloft by the eddying 
current of air, where Madame de Sevigne, with a levity that 
does no credit to her heart, says they still are. 

The life of Cartouche, the grand robber par excellence, sug- 
gests many a striking parallel with that of the " Grand Mon- 
arch." It would be a curious and instructive history, if my 
space permitted, to show the congeniality of principles and ac- 
tions between Louis XIV. and the most dexterous and munifi- 
cent of bandits. Versailles lodged the one, and the Concier- 
gerie the other. Which was the greater criminal, when weigh- 
ed in the balance of the King of kings, it is not for a fellow- 
sinner to decide. Each admirably acted his part in the esti- 
mation of the world. The evil done by the one perished with 
him ; the vanity, lust, pride, and bigotry of the other still 
weighs upon the energies and industry of France. The king- 
died peacefully in his bed, in the comfortable belief of passing 
from his temporal kingdom to a brighter inheritance above ; 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



135 



the robber perished on the wheel, amid the jeers of the popu- 
lace and the curiosity of fine ladies. It is devoutly to be 
hoped that the breed of each is extinguished. 

To visit the Conciergerie, and not recall the image of the 
most illustrious and innocent sufierer of all that have hallow- 




^^'^ ■'"" -' "-^iil:^'' jpilfe'' 




MARXS ANTOINETTE BORNE TO EXECUTION 



136 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ed its walls by examples of piety and resignation, would be to 
refuse a tribute to those sentiments which most dignify hu- 
man nature, and reconcile us to its mingled weakness and 
grandeur. The dungeon of Marie Antoinette is now an expi- 
atory chapel, with nothing to recall its original condition ex- 
cept the souvenirs connected with the sufferings by which she 
so dearly expiated the frivolities and thoughtlessness of her 
early career. To add the bitterness of contrast, and the con- 
tact of vice with virtue, to her end, she was dragged to the 
scaffold in an open cart, in company with a prostitute guilty 
of having cried in a cabaret '^Vive la reine !" The poor girl, 
still capable in her abasement of appreciating the intended in- 
sult to the Clueen of France, knelt at her feet, and humbly said 
to her, as they drove to their joint death, " Madame, Madame, 
forgive me for dying with your majesty," 

I believe there is but one species of natural or artificial vio- 
lence to which mankind do not, in time, become, if not recon- 
ciled, at least reckless or indifferent. Famine, pestilence, war, 
and civil calamities in time cease to affright or warn. Hu- 
man nature, with its versatility of powers for good or evil, 
soon reconciles itself, under one aspect or the other, to any in- 
evitable condition, however terrible its first appearance. The 
exception is the earthquake. The first shock is the least fear- 
ful ; every succeeding one increases trepidation, and destroys 
self-possession. The prisoners of the (Jonciergerie were al- 
most daily decimated by the guillotine during the Reign of 
Terror, yet their daily amusement was to play at charades 
and the — guillotine. Both sexes and all ranks assembled in 
one of the halls. They formed a revolutionary tribunal, 
choosing accusers and judges, and parodying the gestures and 
voice of Fouquier Tinville and his coadjutors. Defenders 
were named ; the accused were taken at hazard. The sen- 
tence of death followed close on the heels of the accusation. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 137 



They simulated the toilet of the condemned, preparing the 
neck for the knife hy feigning to cut the hair and collar. The 
sentenced were attached to a chair reversed, to represent the 
guillotine. The knife was of wood, and, as it fell, the indi- 
vidual, male or female, thus sporting with their approaching 
fate, tumbled down as if actually struck by the iron blade. 
Often, while engaged in this play, they were interrupted by 
the terrible voice of the public crier calling over the " names 
of the brigands who to-day have gained the lottery of the 
holy guillotine," 

Imperfect as are these souvenirs of this celebrated jail, 1 
should be doing injustice to the most interesting of all were 
I to omit the last night of the Girondists, that antique festiv- 
ity, the greatest triumph of philosophy ever witnessed by 
palace or prison walls. Those fierce, theoretical deputies, who 
had so recently sent to the scaffold the King and Glueen of 
France, were now on their way thither. Christianity teaches 
men to live in peaceful humility, and to die with hopeful res- 
ignation. The last hour of a true believer is calmly joyous. 
Here was an opportunity for infidelity to assert its superiority 
in death, as it had claimed for itself the greatest good in life. 
Let us be just to even these deluded men. They had played 
a terrible role in the history of their country, and they re- 
signed themselves to die with the same intrepidity with which 
they had staked their existence upon the success of their pol- 
icy. They made it a death fete, each smiling as he awaited 
the dread message, and devoting his latest moments to those 
displays of intellectual rivalry which had so long united them 
in life. Mainvielle, Duces, Gensonnd, and Boyer Fonfrede 
abandoned themselves to gayety, wit, and revelry, repeating 
their own verses with friendly rivalry, stimulating their com- 
panions to every species of infidel folly. Viger sang amorous' 
songs ; Duprat related a tale ; Gensonne repeated the Mar- 



138 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




seillaise ; while Vergniaud alternately electrified them with 
his eloquence, or discoursed philosophically of their past his- 
tory and the unknown future upon which they were about to 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 139 

enter. The discussion on poetry, literature, and general top- 
ics was animated and brilliant ; on God, religion, the immor- 
tality of the soul, grave, eloquent, calm, and poetic. The 
walls of their prison echoed to a late hour in the morning to 
their patriotic cries, and were witness to their paternal em- 
braces. The corpse of Yalaze', the only one who, by a volun- 
tary death, eluded the scaffold, remained in the cell with 
them. 

The whole scene was certainly the greatest, wildest, and 
most dramatic ever born of courage and reason, yet through- 
out their enthusiasms there appears a chill of uncertainty and 
an intellectual coldness that appalls the conscience. We feel 
that, for the Girondists, it was a consistent sacrifice to their 
theories and lives ; but for a Christian and patriot, a sad and 
unedifying spectacle. While history can not refuse her trib- 
ute of admiration to high qualities, even when misdirected, 
she is equally bound to record the errors and repeat the 
warnings to be derived from those who claim for themselves 
a space in her pages. The lives of the Girondists, as well as 
their deaths, were a confused drama of lofty aspirations, gen- 
erous sentiments, and noble sacrifices, mingled with error, 
passion, and folly. Their character possesses all the cold brill- 
iancy of fireworks, which excite our admiration to be chilled 
with disappointment at their speedy eclipse. Their death- 
scene was emphatically a spectacle. It possessed neither the 
simple grandeur of the death of fSocrates, nor the calm and 
trustful spirit, that characterized the dying moments of Wash- 
ington ; the one yielding up his spirit as a heathen philoso- 
pher, the other dying as a Christian statesman. 



CHAPTEPv yil. 

EMPLOYMENTS OF THE POOR WHAT THEY EAT WHAT THiSi 

WEAR HOW THEY AMUSE THEMSELVES. 

The French government aims to produce upon the stranger 
the same effect from the tout ensemble of Paris, as does the 
belle of the Champs Elysees by the perfection of her toilet 
upon the idlers of all nations who frequent that fashionable 
promenade. Both are got up wdth a nice regard for admira- 
tion. Both are equally successful in their effort. We admire 
the lady as one does a coquettishly arranged bouquet, too con- 
tent with its general beauty to think of criticising its details. 
So with the public edifices and grounds ; we pay them at once 
and involuntarily the homage of our admiration, receiving at 
each glance the intuitive satisfaction that arises from the pres- 
ence of the beautiful, whether made by man or born of God. 
I am not sure that an invidious comparison does not force it- 
self at once upon Americans at the too perceptible contrast be- 
tween the noble avenues, spacious palaces, beautiful places, 
and tasteful gardens ; in short, between the treasures of their 
rich and venerable, ^nd the meagreness of our juvenile and 
practical civilization. The advantages in respect to architect- 
ure, the ornamental arts, and even the scale and elegance of 
the more humble requirements of the necessities of the age, in 
the shape of bridges, rail-road stations, and public edifices gen- 
erally, are greatly on their side. If the comparison stopped 
here, we should be filled with envy. With too many it does 
not go farther, and they dishonor their native land by condemn- 
ing in her the want of a taste for the mere lust of the eye, 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



141 



wliich, if unduly cultivated, would go far to develop with us 
those social contrasts which here mark the extremes of society. 
One instance will suffice to illustrate the ruling passion of 
the various governments of France. The most conspicuous, 
but by no means the most costly of the embellishments of Paris, 
is the Arch of Triumph at the Barrier de I'Etoile. A nobler 




ARCH OF TRIUMPH. 



and more commanding monument at the entrance of a capital 
no other city can boast. From its elevated position, it towers 
far above all that portion of Paris, conspicuous to a great dis- 
tance in the country, like a colossal gateway to a city of giants. 
It is simply an architectural ornament, useful only as affording 



142 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

from its top the best coup d'ceil of Paris. The glory of exhib- 
iting this arch has cost Frenchmen two millions of dollars ad- 
ditional taxes. Even they, while boasting its possession, con- 
sider it an apt illustration of their proverbial expression in re- 
gard to prodigality, "to throv/ money out of the windows." 

"Were American citizens called to decide between the appro- 
priation of two millions of dollars to a similar construction or 
for purposes of education, the schools would get it. Not so in 
France. The gold goes for ornament, the copper for instruc- 
tion. This one fact explains in a great measure the wide dis- 
tinction of ruling principles between the two nations. We 
have less elegance, but more comfort. Our wealth is diffused 
and society equalized. Democracy, like water, constantly seeks 
a level, and with us, imperfect as it is, it is still the most com- 
fortable assurance for future progress in all that makes hu- 
manity at large wise and happy that the world has yet seen. 
France, on the contrary, fluctuating between the extremes 
of aristocratic conservatism and democratic destructiveness, 
though slowly winning her way toward the goal of human 
rights, still exhibits contrasts in the social scale which pain- 
fully mark the poverty and ignorance of her masses. I have 
elsewhere shown that out of the million souls that people Paris, 
eight hundred thousand are in a state of either uncertainty as 
to their future or absolute want. No civilization which pro- 
duces such results can be rightly based. The citizens of the 
United States may well spare France the pride of her monu- 
ments, if their cost is the indigence of her people. 

The better to picture the straits for subsistence to which the 
luxurious civilization of European aristocracy compels the 
masses, I shall draw again upon the streets for specimens of 
the HONEST modes of livelihood of this capital. Without a 
glance at both sides of the social panorama, the American is 
very indifferently qualified to judge of the comparative merits 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 143 



of the institutions of his own and other countries. The least 
a traveler can do for his native land is to gather for it, be it 
in ever so humble a measure, the M^isdom, whether of exam- 
ple or warning, of those he visits. By thus doing, his expatria- 
tion may not be without benefit to his fellow-citizens. If in 
this series of sketches of foreign life I succeed in amusing, I 
shall be gratified ; but if, as is my higher aim, I am able to 
convey a correct moral, my satisfaction will be more complete. 
It is with the female sex that the comparison of occupations 
afibrds the greatest variety of strange examples to American 
eyes. Accustomed as we are to invest woman with the asso- 
ciations of a " home," it is with repugnance at first that we 
see her so isolated from her natural protector, leading a life 
equally as distinct and independent in the strife of existence 
as his. Marriage has not the same heart-interpretation as 
with us. It is a union of interests, seldom of afiections. A 
business arrangement for mutual convenience, leaving to the 
man the same latitude of bachelor instincts as before, and be- 
stowing upon the woman a liberty to be purchased in no other 
way. But the aspect of feminine isolation from domestic re- 
lations is most strongly marked in the extensive class of shop- 
girls and all those compelled to gain a precarious subsistence 
by their individual exertions. They live alone, or in couples, 
allured by every species of dissipation of this sensuous city, 
and without other restraint or surveillance than their own du- 
bious standard of propriety or morals. Their religious edu- 
cation, when they have any, is confined to the pageantry of 
Catholic worship. "While the daughters of the rich are brought 
up in an almost conventual seclusion, scrupulously guarded 
both from the seductions and contact of the world, these girls, 
unsheltered by family roofs, are exposed at a tender age to all 
its trying experiences. Left thus dependent upon their exer- 
tions and prudence, they early acquire a fund of worldly knowl- 



144 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

edge, which soon resolves itself into a code of manners for their 
guidance, and gives them that singularly self-possessed and 
independent air, which with us is the exclusive heritage of our 
male youth. The American female relies upon the rougher 
sex in all matters that bring her into immediate contact with 
the grosser and practical elements of society. The French 
woman, on the contrary, acts for herself as freely as would a 
man under siriiilar circumstances. Hence, in one country, wom- 
an preserves the retiring, timid delicacy most attractive in her 
character ; in the other, she assumes an independence of ac- 
tion that renders her at once a self-relying, shrewd being, as 
capable of living a " bachelor" life as man himself. The one 
calls forth our respectful tenderness from her graceful de- 
pendence. Her innocence is her security. The other de- 
mands our respect as an equal in worldly knowledge and ca- 
pacity of action. She challenges our gallantry for the same 
reason that she fails to win our attention. On all points she 
is armed against the one, and in every respect is independent 
of the other. Her policy is in the finesse of the head. The 
strength of the other lies in the sincerity of her heart. Whether 
the acquired independence of the one is a fair equivalent for 
the winning dependence of the other, each individual will 
judge according to his taste. 

In this relation, however, I can not pass over a significant 
fact in the results of the French system of female education. 
If the exposed lives of the poorer class of girls lead them al- 
most inevitably into vice, or forming temporary connections in 
lieu of the more permanent ties of marriage, the tendency of 
the unnatural seclusion practiced in some of the higher semi- 
naries of learning is even worse. From being never trusted, 
the girls become adroit hypocrites, and, as with Eve, the apple 
of knowledge, though tabooed, is covertly plucked. A cele- 
brated institution near Paris, in the charge of government, 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 145 



where five hundred daughters, sisters, and nieces of the mem- 
bers of the Legion of Honor receive a highly-finished educa- 
tion, under rules of almost military severity, furnishes a large 
proportion of the fair and frail sirens of the (duartier Breda. 
Undoubtedly the difiiculty of negotiating marriages without 




146 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



the indispensable dowry or " dot" is an active promoter of illic- 
it connections between beauty and wealth. Faulty and in- 
exorable social laws are equally as accountable for this state 
of morals as individual frailty. 

It is from this class that we can select the most striking vi- 
cissitudes of female career. In their youth, redolent with love- 
liness, buried as it were in the wealth laid at their feet, the 
mistresses of many hearts and purses, living in apartments 
more luxuriously furnished than those of any palace, daily ex- 
hibiting their envied charms in sumptuous equipages in the 
Bois de Boulogne, and nightly outshining aristocratic beauty 
at the Opera, they purchase their short-lived sensuous career 

at the expense of an age 
of regretful misery and 
repulsive employments. 
Look on this picture 
and then on that. Lov- 
ers and loveliness have 
fled. The triumphs of 
vanity are now succeed- 
ed by the retributions of 
want and age. Folly 
and extravagance have 
proved but indifferent 
foster-parents for infirm- 
ity and loss of beavity. 
The harvest of sin is be- 
ing reaped on her with- 
ered, charmless frame. 
Can you recognize in 
this sad ruin the joyous 
being whose life but a 
few years before was 




PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



147 



one holiday ? Perhaps she was an actress, and you yourself 
covered her with flowers and bravos. Her garments are now 
the mockery of former elegance, even as she is the phantom 
of previous loveliness. She takes your cloak, and offers you a 
programme or cricket as you enter your " loge," for she has 
become a simple " ouvreuse," or door-keeper to the boxes at 
the theatres and opera-houses, but too grateful to receive a 
few sous where once she threw away gold. In Paris there are 
four hundred and sixty-seven " ouvreuses," who depend for 
their subsistence upon the voluntary contributions of the pub- 
lic. Some favored few are said to gain 2000 francs a year, 
while others are reduced to as many hundreds. They have 
the privilege of dying in a hospital, and being buried in the 




THE QBISETTE. 



148 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



common "fosse" or pit. The situation of the " ouvreuse," al- 
though it requires thfe possessor to be up until after midnight, 
is one of the easiest, or, as Americans would say, one of the 
most genteel resorts for feminine decay and poverty. 

Many of the occupations which females fill are such as can 
have their origin only in the fertile soil of a rank, aristocratic 
civilization. They are of every shade of integrity and crime, 
refinement and grossness, from that of the honest and virtuous 
grisette, who laboriously plies her needle in her cosy garret 
room, to the political spy, fashionable pimp, or haggish cor- 
rupter of virginity in the pay of hoary debauchism, both ex- 




THE TEMPTERS AND THE TEMPTED. 




THE GARBAGE-GATHERER. 



• THE HAT-SELLER. 



150 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

hibiting' in their physiognomies the traces of every vice that 
degrades human nature. They include alike the bewitching 
glove-mender of Sterne, the m.ore stately elegance of the 
" dames du comptoir," and the w^retched vender of old hats, 
or peddler of all wares, and agent for every necessity which 
pride, poverty, or shame seek to hide from daylight. Even 
here we have not sounded the depths of the more laborious 
and disgusting of the female out-door employments. At all 
seasons, the shearer of dogs and cats, and the gatherer of gar- 
bage, whose sweetest bouquet is a reeking pile of street filth, 
are to be seen pursuing their calling. They are worthy of 
all commendation for their determination to earn their daily 
bread rather by the sweat of their brows than the charity of 
the public or the chances of crime. 

The female copyists at the Louvre are a numerous class, 
with a decidedly artistic air in the negligence of their toilets. 
They find time both to fulfill their orders, and have an eye to 
spare to the public, particularly to their male brethren. When 
they are employed upon ordered copies, they work with assidu- 
ity ; when not, they more agreeably divide their time between 
complaisant beaux and the arts. As for the rest, they have 
for their home, during most of the week, the comfortable gal- 
leries of the finest museum in Europe ; inhabiting a palace by 
day, and sleeping in a garret at night. The patronage of the 
government is sometimes ludicrously applied toward the fine 
arts. An applicant for a post in the bureau of the telegraph 
received an order to execute a bust in marble — not an impos- 
sibility, if he allowed himself the same latitude of execution 
which a certain Minister of the Interior is said to have advised 
to the widow of an employe, powerfully recommended to his 
favorable consideration. He gave her an order for a copy of 
the mammoth painting of Jesus at the house of Martha and 
Mary, by Paul Ye'ronese. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 151 



" But, Monsieur the Minister, I do not know how to paint ; I 
never touched a brush in my life." 

" Never mind : take the copy. You can have it done by 
another, and arrange to receive the pay." The obliging coun- 
sel was not lost. 

I have given but a few out of the extraordinary employ- 
ments of the female sex at Paris — enough, however, to show 
that there is a wide difference between the relative positions 
of the poorer classes in France and the United States. I 
should be doing injustice to the most formidable type of all 
were I to omit the renowned " Dames des Halles," a class of 
women not only numerous, 
and in many instances weal- 
thy, but of sufficient politic- 
al importance to cause their 
good will to be courted by 
Louis Napoleon, by fetes, 
balls, and courteous speech- 
es, which they return by 
complimentary deputations 
empowered to salute him on 
both cheeks, and leave in his 
hands bouquets of well-nigh 
sufficient volume as to en- 
tirely eclipse him. These 
ladies possess a vocabulary 
of their own, the most com- 
pendious of all idioms in 
terms of vulgar vituperation. 
Their profession, as one may 
readily conceive, is not al- 
ways of the sweetest nature ; but why they, of all the laboring 
sisterhood, should be so particularly ambitious of distinguish- 




DAME DES HALLES. 



153 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ing themselves by the use of an " argot" terrible to uninitiated 
ears, it is not so easy to conceive. The highest exertion of 
their intellectual faculties is to coin new expressions for their 
slang war-whoop. Yet even on this ground they are some- 
times defeated by a battery of epithets more stunning than 
their own. The last case was as follows : A Polytechnic 
student, seeing a formidable-looking specimen of this genus 
barricaded by monsters of lobsters and huge piles of fish, laid 
a wager with his companion that he would " dismount" her 
(so the term goes) with her own weapons. " Done," said his 
friend, as he placed himself safely behind an avalanche of 
vegetables to see the fun. 

"How do you sell this carp, mother?" 

" That carp ? That is worth one hundred sous if it is worth 
one franc, my blackguard ! But, as you are a pretty boy, you 
shall take it for four francs and a half. Eh ! it is given away 
at that ; but one has a weakness for youth." 

" I will give you only thirty sous, and you shall cook it for 
me." 

" Stop ! don't bother me ! You want to buy a broth under 
market price. Let me look a bit at the little fellow ! Three 
bantam chickens and he, by my faith, would go well before a 
coach." 

The fish-woman, like a locomotive, had now started, at one 
jump, at a prodigious rate, and one might as well have at- 
tempted to stop with a straw the one as the other. The 
reader will not, I am sure, exact of me a repetition of her ti- 
rade. The vocabulary of oaths and blackguardism was never 
nigher being entirely exhausted. Want of breath at last 
brought her to a half-halt, when her boyish opponent, put- 
ting himself into a tragic attitude, broke in with, 

" Will you hold your tongue, frightful hydrocyanure of pot- 
ash ! execrable chlorozoic acid ! hideous logarithmic progres- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 153 

sion, indissoluble hygroraetre of Saussure, detestable square 
of the liypotheneuse, abominable parallelopiped !" and on 
rushed the student of the Polytechnic School, sure of never 
being repulsed on this ground, through the entire chemical, 
algebraic, and geometrical nomenclature, setting at defiance all 
scientific arrangement in his zeal to overwhelm his foe. At 
first the fire flashed from her eyes as her excited imagination 
conceived every abominable reproach to be conveyed in the 
meaning of the incomprehensible words that, for the first time, 
saluted her ear. As he proceeded, she became stupefied, and, 
as an expiring effort of despair, shouted out to know from what 
infernal regions he had stolen such a diabolical array of abuse. 
The young man paused for a moment, and recommenced with 
the classification of plants and the cragged terms of geology. 
" For the sake of the Holy Virgin, stop ; I give in. You are 
no white-nose, my little fellow ! Take the carp and wel- 
come," said the dame, in the excess of her admiration at an 
exhibition of lingual power that left hers far in the shade. 

In the United States we have a monotonous display of 
broadcloth and silks, with no distinguishing features by which 
one class of citizens can be discriminated from the other. The 
individual alone may be remarked by his taste, but his species 
can not be detected by his dress. Not so in Paris. Every oc- 
cupation has its fashion, its cut, its air, as distinct and discern- 
ible as the uniforms of the army. Each is so fitted to its cos- 
tume that it would be at home in no other. The washer- 
woman can never be mistaken for the cook, nor the nurse for 
the grisette. The bourgeois remains the bourgeois ; the foot- 
man never burlesques the general of division ; the workman 
no more thinks of leaving his blouse than the oyster his shell ; 
in fact, each individual of this city is as readily classified by 
his costume as any animal by its skin and shape. Their in- 
door localities are also as distinct as those of the brute varie- 

n 2 



154 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ties of the animal kingdom. All cleave to their particular 
quarters with the adhesiveness of a special instinct. Like 
strong and separate currents, their outer edges only mingle, 
filling the thoroughfares with a picturesque crowd, on which 
one is never tired of gazing. 

The difference between the two nations is equally as per- 
ceptible in the tariff of prices. We gen:eralize ; they particu- 
larize. We name a round sum, which covers all charges ; 
their first charge is but a foundation for an infinitesimal dose 
of others. In New York, call a carriage, and the driver takes 
you and your baggage to a given point for a round sum. In 
Paris, attempt the same, and the result will be as follows : 
Your baggage is to be brought down ; that calls for a porter 
and one payment. You have called a coach, and, as you are 
stepping in, a " commissionaire" takes hold of the door, and, 
with cap in hand, asks you to remember him. : his service 
has been to shut it ; payment No. 2. You stop ; another com- 
missionaire opens the door ; payment No. 3. You pay the 
driver his legal fare — payment No. 4~and think you are 
through. But do not take such consolation to your purse. 
Monsieur has forgotten the " pour boire," politely remarks 
Jehu, and you derive from him the gratifying information that 
custom allows him to demand the wherewithal to buy a dram, 
and this makes payment No. 5, for the simple operation of 
getting into a hackney-coach. This principle extends through 
every branch of pecuniary intercourse, and, after all, is a wise 
one, for, by this rule, we pay only for services rendered and 
dinners eaten. 

With the term " Paris fashions" we associate only ideas of 
periodical importations of novelties of refinement and elegance 
in dress and style of living. But this view is as imperfect as 
that of judging of the actual condition of France only by its 
parks and palaces. The female sex, as it appears to me, take 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



155 



the first choice of employments, leaving to men such only as 
they do not find to their interest or taste. The life-sketches 
already given show that these are sufficiently bizarre to ex- 
cite our surprise, though not always our envy. There are cer- 
tain provinces that appear to be neutral ground, such as those 
of street-minstrels, chifTonniers, peddlers, newspaper-venders, 
and " merchants" of crimes, as the ill-omened cryers of the 
prolific catalogue of tragic events are technically called. These 
birds of evil announce, with startling intonations, their list of 
assassinations, poisonings, suicides, and capital executions, ex- 
tracted from the judicial journals, for sale at the fixed price of 
a sou each. Those who have a keen taste for the horrible 
can gratify it at a cheap rate by the inspection of the " m.er- 
chant" and his stock in trade. Like the vulture, he appears 
to grow foul from the garbage that supplies his food. 




MERCHANT OF CRIMES. 



DATE-SELLER. 



156 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



The " date-merchant" must nec- 
essarily be a man, as no female 
could furnish the requisite amount 
of beard to counterfeit satisfacto- 
rily the Turk. This disguise is 
assumed to prove the Oriental ori- 
gin of his fruit, and to strike the 
imagination of his juvenile pat- 
rons. 

No one will dispute the inclina- 
tion of the female sex to carry 
their heads high, but we doubt 
whether one has ever been found 
to compete with the basket-mer- 
chant in his extraordinary head- 
dress, moving as easily and grace- 
fully through the streets with this 
Babel of straw and wicker-work 
on his head as if it were simply 
the latest style of coiffure. Of 
course, he can only put out with 
his pyramidical bazar on a still 
day, as a head wind, or any wind 
at all, would speedily bare his 
head, and send his baskets flying 
in all directions, a joyous fete for 
avaricious urchins, but ruinous to 
him. 

The merchant of " death to the rats" belongs to an expiring 
race. Long have the cats looked with envy upon his spoils, 
hung upon a pole, with which he walks the streets, typical of 
his profession. But they who have longest known his meagre 
countenance will soon know him no longer. Whether any of 




i 



BASKET-SELLER. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



157 



the "dinners for seventy-five centimes" restaurants will raise 
their bill of fare on account of his exit remains to be seen. A 
company has been formed, with a capital of three hundred 
thousand francs, for the extirpation of all the rats of Paris. 
If a cordon of cats is to be established around the city to keep 
out the country rats, hare will become a rare dish in m.ore than 
one cheap restaurant. 





DEATH TO KATS. 



THE TOMB OF SECRETS. 



The last masculine occupation that I shall cite is one which 
no female ever aspired to, from the consciousness that it ex- 
acts, perhaps, the only accomplishment that she despairs of 
attaining. Its motto is " the Tomb of Secrets," and its chief- 
est attribute, silence. The professor must be more dumb than 
Memnon, but with an ear as keen and comprehensive as that 
of Dionysius. He is a depositary of secrets of the heart and 



158 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

hopes of the purse, a framer of petitions, the agent of intrigues 
— in fact, a confessor-general to the unlettered multitude, re- 
ducing into a transmissible shape the desires of the unfortu- 
nate Monsieur or Madame to whom the mysteries of writing 
remain a hieroglyphical puzzle. Their numbers are suffi- 
ciently indicative of the ignorance of the inhabitants at large. 
Yet it often happens that the silence of his mummified exist- 
ence is uninterrupted for hours. Then, perhaps, his skill is 
taxed by a tricky cook, who, perplexed by the unreconcilable 
balances of her receipts and disbursements, seeks an accom- 
plice to reduce her accounts to the required condition to pass 
examination. To live, it is necessary to be silent, yet a blush 
will sometimes steal over his withered cheek as he obediently 
enters in the account the bread bought by the cook at one sou, 
charged to Madame, the mistress, at two sous, and thus, by a 
discreet use of the rule of multiplication, finally obtains the 
coveted balance. 

The American laborer, who consumes in one day more meat 
than the family of a French " ouvrier" in a week, would fam- 
ish upon their bill of fare. The necessity which begets many 
of their employments pays, also, but poor wages. Yet what 
would be considered in the United States as a tribute fit only 
for the swill-tub, would, by skill and economy, be made to fur- 
nish a welcome meal. The dietetic misery of the former 
country would prove the savory competency of the latter. But, 
whatever may be the composition of their frugal repasts, they 
are eaten with a zest and good-humor that are not always 
guests at more sumptuous repasts. The American laborer eats 
the same quality of meat and bread as his employer. Either 
of these, to the French workman, would be equivalent to a 
fete. His bread is coarser, meat inferior, and throughout his 
whole diet there is the same difference in quality as in his 
clothes. Many of the necessaries of his American brother he 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 159 

only knows by seeing them in shop windows. We are also 
able to rear Louvres and Versailles ; to build cathedrals and 
erect triumphal gateways; but, in our present stage of civili- 
zation, they would take the chicken out of every workman's 
pot, and drive his children from the common schools to the 
fields and factories. 

The science of living well at a cheap rate is not understood 
in the United States. General necessity has not as yet begot- 
ten that special knowledge. In Paris, thirteen sous will pro- 
vide a tolerable dinner of a dish of soup, loaf of bread, and a 
plate of meat and vegetables " mele." This species of healthy 
and economical alimentation is the heritage of a large class 
of workmen, and even of impoverished students and artists, 
who seek these cheap restaurants under the convenient cloud 
of the incognito. There are other resorts where they can eat 
at the rate of fifteen sous by the first Jiour, eight sous by the 
second, and so on, the chief diet being roast veal, as good a 
name as any other, provided the alimentary faith is unshaken. 
We even find dinners dX four sous, composed of four courses, 
as follows : 

Vegetable soup 1 sou. 

Bread 1 " 

Montagnards (great red beans) 1 " 

Coffee with sugar 1 " 

or four sous per head. It is needless to observe that to swal- 
low the " coffee''^ (which in Paris costs forty cents a pound) re- 
quires even more faith than the roast veal or a Romish mir- 
acle. Not a few sewing-girls, or domestics out of place, dine 
daily on a sou's worth of bread. The table-service of the din- 
ners at four sous is very simple. The table is an enormous 
block of wood, the surface of which is dug out into the form 
of bowls and plates. To each hole are attached, with iron 
chains, knives, forks, and spoons of the same metal. A buck- 



160 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

et of water dashed over the whole serves to " lay the tahle" for 
the diners next in coursco 

The examples already given are sufficient to illustrate the 
modes of livelihood and the quality of the diet of this class of 
the population. To finish the sketch, it is necessary to show 
how they amuse and whence they clothe themselves. Edu- 
cation and religion would, with us, be the primary objects of 
inquiry, but here they are lost sight of in the furor of amuse- 
ment. Their colleges and churches are the low theatres that 
line the Boulevard du Temple, aptly designated as the Boule- 
vard of Crimes, from the characteristics of the plays here per- 
formed. These are applauded by their mongrel audiences, a 
large proportion of which are children, nurses, and even in- 
fants, in proportion as they are filled with the horrible, super- 
natural, obscene, vulgar, and blasphemous. Murders, fights, 
licentiousness, assassinations, double-entendre, and the coarsest 
jokes, are their stock in trade. The most sacred subjects, even 
death, and the tenants of the grave, and spirits of heaven and 
hell, are ridiculously parodied. Their very exaggeration of 
what is false or low in human nature makes them indeed 
amusing, but no one can witness their performances, inter- 
rupted as they are by the stunning shouts of the enthusiastic 
spectators, without being convinced that they are powerful 
auxiliaries to infidelity and crime. Their influences are de- 
basing, promotive of skepticism, and particularly destructive 
to the quiet virtues of domestic life. When the public, as has 
happened within three years, crowd its area to see its youngest 
and handsomest actress appear as Eve on the stage, entirely 
naked, with the exception of a scanty piece of flesh-colored 
silk tightly drawnover the loins, we may safely conclude that 
the habitues of the " Boulevard des Crimes" are not over-nice 
in their moral standard for the drama. Adultery is the staple 
joke, and a deceived husband a legitimate butt. Even at 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



161 



the Grand Opera, female nudity commands a high premium, 
and at all, modesty or veneration would be considered as the 
affectations of prudery. 

If the theatre may be considered as their church, the " esta- 
minets," or cafes, where smoking is allowed, and the drarai- 
shops, may as appropriately be classed as their common 
schools. The pleasures of the French are not of a fireside 
character : publicity gives them, their chiefest zest. Conse- 
quently, the time which rightfully belongs to the family is de- 
voted to the " estaminet." True, the bachelor lives or the 



_U Ji..lLilJJL_A 




ESTAMINET. 



forbidding homes of the lower orders would seem to open to 
them no other resource, and at them, they can enjoy the fire and 
lights, which are often beyond their means under their own 
roofs. I do not, however, inquire into the causes, but speak 
only of the effects of existing customs. Evenings thus spent 
amid the fumes of the vilest of tobacco, and the excitement of 



162 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



equally bad liquors, make fit disciples for the barricades, but 
poor citizens of a republic. 

The market of the Temple, or, as it is more commonly called, 
that of old linen, is one of the most extraordinary sights of 
Paris. It is a huge wooden bazar, open on all sides, divided 
into four grand and innumerable little avenues, and cut up into 




PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 163 



1888 miniature shops, rented by the city at thirty- three sous 
each weekly, producing an annual income of about $32,000. 
There are four quarters, known respectively as the " Carre du 
Palais Royal," a sort of parody on the true Palais Uoyal, com- 
prising the silk, lace, and glove merchants, and the venders 
of every species of foppery required to make up the second- 
rate lion, or copy of a fine lady. Here, too, are the traps or 
baiting-places of sellers of bric-a-brac, who waylay their prey 
in the vestibules, and thence conduct them to their rich wares 
close by, buried in the most frightful of houses. Among them 
we find furniture of buhl, porcelain of Sevres and Japan, a 
world of curiosities, and an untold wealth of satins, and the 
richest of merchandise, sold cheaper, because stored cheaper, 
than in the luxurious shops of the Uue Vivienne and Rue de 
la Paix. The stupefied customer, who sought a cheap baga- 
telle, finds himself confronted in these obscure retreats by ar- 
tistic caprices to be had for no less than 10,000 francs each. 

The second quarter, the Pavilion of Flora, a little less aris- 
tocratic than the preceding, comprises the more useful house- 
hold objects, of a cheap and dubious character. 

In the third, " le Pou Volant" (the reader will pardon me 
the translation), rags, old iron, and indescribable wares pre- 
dominate. The fourth, and most hazardous, is "the Black 
Forest," a medley of every cheap abomination, new and sec- 
ond-hand. 

This bazar has its peculiar slang and types of inhabitants. 
The little shops are called ''ayonsT Hugo naively remarks, 
why not '' haillons .'' The curious observer can penetrate the 
first two quarters without other inconvenience than repeated 
but courteous applications for his custom. But it requires 
considerable courage and self-possession to penetrate the mys- 
teries of the " Pou Volant" and the " Foret Noire." Harpies, 
scarcely recognizable as of the female sex, beset his progress. 



164 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




THE PAVILION OF FLORA. 



seize him by the arms or garments, and menace in their ri- 
valry literally to divide him. into halves. These runners are 
termed, in the argot idiom, " raleusesr Escaping them, he is 
assailed by a flanking fire of direct apostrophes, half in argot, 
from their employers. " My amiable sir, buy something — buy 
— you must buy. What does Monsieur want? a carpet — a 
coat to go to a ball — a cloak, first quality — a ' niolle^ good 
quality — a decrochez-moiga, for Madame, your wife — patent 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



165 




JiA FOKET NOIRE. 



boots — an umbrella — a ^ ^cluse^ all the ^frusques* of St. John, 
at your choice." 

Should the adventurer continue on his way without reply- 
ing to the temptations of these commercial syrens, a torrent of 
mingled abuse and irony is discharged upon him. "Ah! in- 
deed ! how much he buys ! Very well — one must excuse him. 
What did he come here for, this picayune fellow ? I say, 
Monsieur, let us, at the least, mend the elbows of your coat. 
He carries his body well, to be sure. Ohe ! pane ! Let the 



166 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



gentleman pass. He is an embassador on his way to the court 
of Persia. Hei !" 

Just beyond this bazar rises the " Rotonde du Temple," 
which is to its neighbor what the common graves at Pere la 
Chaise are to the rest of the cemetery. It is the receptacle of 
all the debris of human attire, too mean to find shelf-room 
even in the market of "old linen." One sees a pandemoni- 




ROTONDE DU TEMPLE 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 167 

um of rags, tattered garments, rent boots, old hats, and every 
object upon which the heart of a scavenger Jew dotes. Cos- 
tumes which have survived the saturnalia of many a carnival, 
and uniforms discharged by the order of the day or the death 
of their proprietors, dating from the empire down, theatrical 
wardrobes too venerable for active service, and fashions which 
have long since been driven from human backs, are here min- 
gled in one picturesque equality of poverty. Even out of such 
a collection Parisian taste contrives to make a not unpleasing 
effect. As with Parisian pauperism., it has a cleaner and more 
cheerful look than English indigence and old clothes. 

The Rotonde is circular, with a cloister of forty-four ar- 
cades in the exterior. A damp and dark court occupies the 
interior. It is a species of low rival to the bazar, and limit- 
ed in its circumference ; but it is computed to lodge more than 
a thousand inhabitants. They drink and dine at the neighbor- 
ing wine-shops and cafes, known as the Elephant, Two Lions, 
and kindred names. At these, brandy is eight sous the bot- 
tle, a ragout three sous, and a cup of coffee one cent. There 
are resorts still cheaper and lower, such as the " Field of the 
"Wolf," frequented by the most brutal of the denizens of this 
quarter, who in their orgies not unfrequently mingle blood 
with the blue fluid that they swallow for wine. The greater 
part of these dram-shops add to their debasing occupation that 
of usury. But, as we have now arrived at that point where 
the line which marks the boundary between legitimate indus- 
try and crime becomes indistinct, I stop. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE STREETS OF PARIS. 

Change, more than growth, is the prominent trait of Eu- 
ropean cities. It is true that some increase with a speed that 
leaves but little advantage on the side of American progress, 
yet, in general, that which chiefly distinguishes them from our 
towns is the substitution of the new forms of civilization for 
the old, or, as we of the nineteenth century are vain enough 
to term it, improvement. Old buildings are razed, to be suc- 
ceeded by modern palaces,' and old habits perish with them. 
Not only the aspect, but the entire life of streets, is metamor- 
phosed. Customs that had their origin in the inconvenience 
and semi-barbarism of the Middle Ages, cease as they come in 
contact with the generation that builds rail-roads and talks by 
the telegraph. "We demand elegance as well as utility. JNTo 
city has more to boast of in this respect, since the dawn of the 
present century, than Paris. It is rapidly realizing its proud 
claim of being the capital of the world. Soon the few linger- 
ing remains of the domestic life and manners of the subjects 
of Charles IX., and the times when Catholic and Protestant 
met only to revile and strike, will have disappeared under the 
reforming trowel of ripening civilization. House and hotel, 
the plebeian homes of the slayers an^ the slain of St.Barthe- 
lemi, as well as the courtly residences of the noblest of its 
butchers and their victims, are being leveled to the ground, 
not one by one, but by whole streets and squares, that their 
descendants may breathe freer air, and sleep in more spacious 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



169 ' 



chambers. Yet, with a taste that contrasts strangely, though 
happily, with the fanaticism that slew Jean Guigon while at 
work upon the Louvre, every relic of his chisel is now pre- 
served and restored with sacred care, as the just tribute to a 
genius which another age may equal, but not excel. He who 
would see old Paris must needs haste, otherwise the gar- 
ments of the new will have soon shut it wholly out from sight. 
It well repays the trouble of the traveler, v/hose relish of mod- 
ern ease has not extinguished within him the desire to con- 
trast his luxury with the luxury of his ancestors — ^by way of 
Adam — to penetrate into the narrow, crooked streets, so crook- 
ed that, like some sticks, it seems impossible for them to lie 
still, that now contain what remains of old Paris. Gluaint old 
human rookeries look tottling down upon him. Turrets aiid 
towers gray with the 
dust and taste of an- 
tiquity ; fanciful carv- 
ings of saintly sub- 
jects, proving the or- 
thodoxy of their build- 
ers ; houses that lean 
forward and lean back- 
ward, that lean upon 
their neighbors and 
their neighbors lean 
upon them, so irregu- 
lar, so projecting, now 
this way and now that 
way, story overlap- 
ping story, gable ends next to more sightly fronts, that he will 
come to the conclusion that they were built long before the 
invention of the rule and plumb-line, or that the only rule ob- 
served was that of contrariwise. They are now uniform 

T-t' 




OLD PARIS. 



170 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 



enough in their exhibition of poverty. Its rags and squalor 
are confined to their intricate recesses. What is seen indi- 
cates thrift and industry, and many ways of livelihood not yet 
domesticated in more fortunate America. The hotels and 
buildings of greatest pretensions have been converted into 
manufactories and " magasins." They are now the abodes of 
vast stores of costly merchandise, like the butterfly in its 
chrysalis state, with which Paris caters to the taste and vanity 
of the entire world. 

Such is the aspect of old Paris. The change may be better 
appreciated by a glance at the corner of the Rue de la Paix in 
new Paris, the Paris of the nineteenth century, as contrasted 

with the Paris of the 
sixteenth. The corri- 
- dors or covered passages 
i which distinguish, this 
lyle of modern archi- 
tecture are worthy of 
being adopted in all cli- 
mates, for they afford to 
the pedestrian an equal 
protection against rain, 
sun, and snow, and are 
sufficiently lofty to al- 
low beneath two stories, the rez-de-chaussee and the entresol^ 
the one convenient for shops and the other for small families. 
Could both sides of Broadway be rebuilt after this plan, throw- 
ing the present sidewalks into the street, it would furnish the 
much-needed room for carriages, and only abstract from the 
lowest story of the buildings sufhcient space for the accommo- 
dation of foot-passengers. New York would then present not 
only the finest, but most comfortable street in the world. INor 
is there any other way by which she can secure equal roorn 




NEW PARIS. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 171 

at less expense. Paris, in another feature, affords an example 
of judicious use of back lots, by the erection of "passages" or 
arcades, which run from street to street through the centre of 
blocks, paved with marble, and protected by glass roofs from, 
the extremes of temperature and bad weather. In them, 
shopping is done under cover. The most fashionable, such as 
the Passages Choiseul, Panoramas, and Jouffroy, embrace in 
their supplies every want to which human flesh is heir. One 
living in their vicinity finds them decidedly convenient, and is 
able to despise an umbrella, and snap his fingers in the face 
of Jehu. They afford also very lively promenades, especially 
when brilliantly lighted up of an evening. The Passage De- 
lorme, near which I lived, not three hundred feet in length, 
contained a cafe, restaurant, optician, book-store, reading-room, 
hair-dresser, boot-maker, every shop and every variety con- 
nected with male and female toilets, a fruit-market, cigars, cu- 
riosity-shop, a boot-black, and even " a cabinet d'aisance," 
kept, as all are, by a woman. In short, I can not name what 
it did not contain that a person of moderate wants might de- 
sire. The Choiseul and the galleries of the Palais Royal em- 
brace theatres in their attractions. Their convenience, and 
economy of ground otherwise difficult to dispose of, are worthy 
of imitation, as n. paying speculation elsewhere. 

The garden of the Palais Royal possesses a curious attrac- 
tion, which never fails to draw a crowd at meridian of a 
bright day. It consists of a little swivel, so connected with a 
sun-dial that, when the sun has attained its full elevation, the 
rays are concentrated upon the touch-hole, and explode the 
charge, announcing that twelve o'clock has arrived. It serves 
for a regulator to the numerous watch-making establishments 
in the vicinity. 

The variety of out-door female employments, particularly 
their nature, and the unintelligible cries attached to some, are 



\72 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



a never-failing source of surprise and amusement to a citizen 
of a land where all women are " ladies," and all their occupa- 
tions confined to the house. I would particularly call the at- 
tention of female reformers, desirous of enlarging their sphere 
of action, to a few random specimens taken from the streets 
of Paris. They will perceive that mankind are not so selfish 
in Europe as to monopolize all the more active pursuits of life, 
as they would fain have us believe is the case in America. 
First, we have that indispensable being, the cook. Pastry 

and bread are unknown arts 
to her science. The fabrica- 
tion of them is not her prov- 
ince, but to buy them, as well 
as the material of those de- 
licious entremets, in which 
she shows her intimate 
knowledge of stomachic en- 
tertainment, is her diurnal 
duty. It affords her the 
double pleasure of coquet- 
ting with your purse and her 
lovers. The preparations for 
one of these gastronomic 
campaigns is to her a mat- 
ter of no small moment. 
However lacking she may 
have been in her particular 
kingdom in that desirable 
quality reckoned next to god- 
liness, her advent in the 
street is signalized by an attention to her toilet, crowned by 
the indispensable white cap, that renders her quite as con- 
spicuous to others as to herself. She is endowed with a sort 




THE COOK. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



173 




A. "bonne" of all work. 



of medium figure and style to tliose of the two extremes of 
" bonnes," or servants of all work, alternately the drudges or 
confidantes of their mistress- 
es, as humor prompts or ne- 
cessity requires. The first 
of these work harder and 
fare worse than Southern 
slaves. There is no labor, 
however servile or rude, that 
they are not called upon to 
do, besides an indefinite 
amount of lying for the ben- r 
efit of their employers. One 
far uglier than the opposite 
figure, who had charge of 
the coarse work of an apart- 
ment I hired, interested me 
much from her invariable good-humor, under labors various 
and hard enough to have aroused rebellion in a mule. At 
my request, she gave me an account of her daily duties, 
which, as they are but the common lot of a very large class 
of " help" in sunny France, may prove not without a moral 
to maid and mistress here. " Well, Louise, you keep me 
waiting a long while after ringing the bell." " Yes, Mon- 
sieur, I ask pardon; but I am called upon here in the house, 
and in the shop, all at once. I run as fast as I can, but I 
can't quite manage it," she replied, laughing. " You have to 
work hard, Louise, yet you are always singing and happy." 
" Yes, Monsieur, I was born to work. Some persons, you 
know, must work all the time, and I am one. I rise at day- 
light, and do all the out-door work ; then I wait on Mademoi- 
selle — sometimes she is very cross, and makes me go up and 
down stairs very often (three long flights) ; then, you know, I 



174 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

must be in here early, to sweep and put things to rights. Be- 
fore I am through here, Madame at the shop calls me, and I 
must leave and go over there (about three hundred feet off) ; 
when I get there, perhaps she only wanted to scold a bit, or to 
pick up her handkerchief. Then, you know, I must come back, 
and that makes six flights of stairs — that takes up some time. 
I get through with your rooms by eleven o'clock ; then I have 
two other sets of apartments to take care of. It would not be 
so bad if it were not for the stairs. I quite forgot, before com- 
ing in here I have the breakfast to buy and make for Mon- 
sieur and Madame at the shop. "Would you believe it, the 
kitchen is above the shop, a bit of a place no bigger than a 
cart, and I must buy all my water and wood, and carry it up 
there myself. There is no drain ; and every time I have oc- 
casion to empty any water — and when I cook vegetables they 
make me wash them several times — I must carry all the slops 
below, and empty them into the gutter. That makes my back 
ache worst of all. Well, I am no sooner through with the 
rooms than I have to go out again and buy the dinner, and 
cook that. Madame is particular, and will have every dish 
she fancies. After dinner, I go errands or work in the shop. 
I am at it all the time. By eleven at night they let me go to 
bed, that is up five flights, if they can't find any thing more for 
me to do." " But don't you have any time to yourself?" " No, 
Monsieur, not a minute. Sometimes I want to sew a little at 
night, but I am so tired that the moment I take my needle I 
fall asleep." " So you must hire some one to make all your 
clothes ?" " Yes ; I have no time for that." " What do they 
pay you?" "About seventeen cents a day; and if I break a 
cup or tumbler, or injure any thing, they deduct it from my 
wages. Sometimes the shop-boy breaks an article, and Mad- 
ame makes me pay for it, because she says it was my business 
to see it was not broken. I broke a glass in here the other 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



175 



day, and went and bought another, for fear Madame II- 



would find it out and scold me badly. Perhaps you did not 
know it ?" " No, Louise ; but you need not do so here, for I 
see you are very careful. Here, take this money ; I will pay 
for it." " Indeed, Monsieur, you are altogether too good ; it 
was my fault." 

On another occasion, I asked her if she knew any one to 
whom some cast-off clothing would be useful. " Oh yes, 
Monsieur. If Monsieur will permit it, I should so like to have 
them for my boy." "What! are you married, Louise ?" 
" Mon Dieu ! no," she replied, " no one would marry me ; I 
am too ugly." I ascertained it was for the son of a former 
mistress, with whom she had lived many years, but who at 
last became too poor to retain even her, and she had ever 
since, out of her own meagre earnings, from gratitude for their 
past kindness, been assisting them. A more contented, labo- 
rious, and even happy creature I never saw. Full of the usual 
faults of French domestics, but with a heart that qualified her 
for a saint, she was at once the Achates and Griselda of 
servants. These traits are not rare in this humble class of 
women. 

The fashionable " bonne" is a different being, faithful enough 
to her mistress when 
her own interests or 
vanity are not in con- 
flict. She is the but- 
terfly domestic, but her 
position is no sinecure, 
though her wages and 
fare are better than her 
more lowly prototype. 
French families are 
averse to receiving any a fashionable "bonne." 




176 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



servants who have lived with foreigners, on the ground of their 
being spoiled by too much indulgence. With them, in general, 
they are either allowed a certain sum to find their own wine 
and food, or are confined to a cheaper diet than that of their em- 
ployers. These are small matters to mention, but they have 
an important bearing upon the condition of a numerous class 
of our fellow-beings. French domestics are born, bred, live, 
and die such — hopeless and unambitious of a change, unless 
an opportunity to marry offers, which is, in general, but ex- 
changing one servitude for another. Their existence depend- 
ing so entirely upon their capacitieis in this line, they are com- 
pelled to educate themselves as a race of servants. 

Hard as may appear the lot of female domestic servitude, 

there are rounds in the social ladder 
still more lowly and severe. The 
fish-women, as may be seen, are no 
beauties, nor their occupation one of 
much refinement. Their slang and 
patois are most amusing, but too vul- 
gar for repetition, as any one can test 
by hailing one of these " dames de la 
halle,'''' who are but too prone to give 
verbal vent to their inward corrup- 
tion. Woe to the refined ears that 
irritate their wrath. Billingsgate is 
sunshine in comparison to the hurri- 
cane of Avords that pours from their throats. To escape their 
notice, one must pass through their quarters very rapidly and 
abstracted. Even then, random sounds of not the most com- 
plimentary nature will greet his ears, unless stopped by the 
silver tribute in exchange for their scaly wares. 

The flower-girls are more amiable specimens of this gen- 
der, though not all so jolie as my friend present. Age and 




FISH-WOMAN. 



k 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



177 





FLOWER-GIRL. 



GAKE-WOMAN. 



Ugliness make a singular choice of livelihoods, echoing their 
monotonous and inconsistent cry with cracked and shrill voices 
along the streets, " Here is pleasure, ladies, here ;" in this in- 
stance, the " pleasure" being in their baskets, and not in their 
faces. Their stock in trade is a kind of cake, made simply of 
sugar and flour, lighter and thinner than vanity itself. I de- 
spair of exhausting the variety of female street illustrations, 
and therefore content myself with picturing a few only, leav- 
ing imagination to supply the blanks. To 
perfect the descriptions, it would be nec- 
essary to give the sounds that announce 
their various wares and occupations. But 
words that few Frenchmen even can com- 
prehend are not always to be understood 
by a stranger, especially when their dis- 
cordant notes make deafness appear a £^.> 
blessing. Coleridge once asked a Lon- 
don Jew why he cried " Old c/o" contin- 
ually instead of " old clothes ?" " If you 
had cried it as long as I have," he re- 
plied, "you would not ask why." The 

H2 




OLD CLOTHES-MAN. 



178 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



same cause, I presume, operates to produce the contractions 
and horrible sounds of Paris. Our old rag-woman, though no 

beauty, is a person of 
consequence and re- 
spectability compared 
with the last profes- 
sion in the social chain, 
that of the " chifTon- 
nier," whose occupa- 
tion is to glean the 
garbage of the streets. 
Yet even from, such 
a beginning fortunes 
sometimes arise. I hired for the winter a fine apartment of a 
" chiffonnier," who had become a. merchant of meubles, with an 
annual income of $8000, and was the owner of a fine country- 
seat. The " coco"-man, with his liquorice-water drink, in a 
J sort of pagoda-shaped tin ves- 

sel, still cries, " Cool drink !" 
under a blazing sun, bidding 
defiance to innovation and more 




RAG-WOMAN. 




THE "COCO"-MAN. 



LA BAVAUDEUSE. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



179 



noxious fluids. But the tide of improvement, with the in- 
creasing love of " eau de vies,'' will, before long, sweep him off 
from the public stage. The " ravaudeuse," or mender, is fast 
disappearing, but, as a type of useful industry, is worthy of 
being perpetuated among the records of past life. 

Such are some of the figures of the gratuitous drama of 
Parisian life. There are others no less ridiculous and infinite- 




EOX-SELLERS. 



ly more demoralizing (if this term can be applied with pro- 
priety to any honest mode of livelihood), which I can not omit 
without doing injustice to a very conspicuous source of amuse- 
ment to all classes. I refer to the public balls, commencing 
with those in which figure the wash-women and the fish-wom- 
en, with their gallants. These are periodical, generally about 
'' mi-careme,'' or half way through Lent, when Parisian na- 
ture can stand the penance of fast and forbearance from the 
dance no longer, and the Church is compelled to shut its eyes 
at the last and most riotous of the masked balls, and indulo-e 
their more humble professors in one night's trip on the light 
fantastic toe. The figures here are somewhat original, re- 
markable rather for weight and emphasis than grace. But to 
see dancing in all the luxuriance of unrestrained French an- 



180 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



imation, one must, if in winter, stroll into the Valentino or 
Salle Paganini, or during the summer into the Bal Mobile, 
Eanalegh, in the Chateau des Fleurs. In all of these places 
the dancing is graceful and decorous while the sergent de ville 
looks in, but when his back is turned, or his eyes have as- 
sumed a convenient abstraction, fast and furious grows the 
dance, till, in the excitement and activity of the cancan, it 



^r^ 

J v^ 





fish-woman's ball. 



CANCAN LEQER. 



Vv^ould seem as if human muscles, or, at all events, garments, 
must give way. In the extravagances of the Polynesian 
dances I thought I had beheld the climax of license in this 
art, but it was reserved for the beautiful and tastefully-at- 
tired mademoiselle of this capital to convince me that I was 
mistaken. Imagination can not conceive any thing more gro- 
tesque than some of its figures. They require, too, an amount 
of activity little short of the miraculous to attain the full spirit 
of the dance. In their excitement, the dancers literally strive 
to jump out of their skins. They make more contortions than 
an impaled worm, and wind up with a twirl-about that would 
do credit to the whirling dervishes. The orthodox license of 
the polka hug is somewhat exceeded, and the embrace of the 
waltz would astonish the warmest advocates of that dance. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 181 




CANCAN FLEURI. 



LE TOURNIQUET. 



Were it not that at this juncture the police awake to their du- 
ties, it would speedily degenerate into a vulgar and disgusting 

display. 

The word Republic sounds so gratefully to American ears, 
that we are apt, in the first glow of our enthusiasm, to mistake 
the name for the reality, and give France credit for a demo- 
cratic spirit that she does not possess. She would, indeed, be 
a glorious ally to the cause of democracy, and well might we 
be proud of her conversion, if it had the merit of sincerity. 
The only democracy she has thus far known is anarchy, from 
the evils of which she finds her sole remedy in despotism. 
This is not surprising when we examine her social frame. It 
is essentially aristocratic throughout. Great triumphs have 
indeed been won in the cause of civil rights, and feudal servi- 
tude perished in 1789 ; but the habits of centuries have be- 
come the social constitution of the people, and can not be ex- 
chano-ed for more healthful institutions at a mere declaration 
of political rights, or baptizing anew the government. No at- 
tempt has yet been made to train or educate the nation into 
republicanism. Their aristocratic framework of society, the 
legitimate offspring of their long ages of feudalism and mon- 
archy, is still the moving principle of the nation. In the 
United States, democracy has fused its followers into one col- 
lective mass — the people. This is the only caste, the sole 



182 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



privileged body we possess. Individuals differ in fortune and 
position, but they are all compelled to float on the v^ide, equal- 
izing ocean of democracy, now rising and now disappearing 
in the waves, as their own merits determine. Our institutions 
are democratic to the back-bone. Let him who doubts this 
attempt to ape the aristocrat. He would meet with the same 
respect as did the jackdaw in the peacock's plumes. In 
France, society is one of wide distinctions, none the less he- 
reditary by the abortive abolition of titles, or life interest only 
in patents of nobility. Social tastes are 
perpetuated from father to son. The 
rule in France is the exception in the 
United States, and the exception in the 
United States is the rule in France. In 
the former, the servant breeds the serv- 
ant, the mechanic raises the mechanic, 
the son of the tradesman stands behind 
his father's counter, and blood clinofs to 
race like original sin. In the latter, the 
laborer of one generation is the leader 
of the upper ten thousand in the next. 
The sailor is the father of the merchant, 
the mechanic of the statesman, and the farmer of the clergy- 
man. Their children snufi^ the clod again, and the wheel of 
society, revolving quickly, regularly, and surely, gives all alike 
a chance at the top. This is our natural condition, our do- 
mestic constitution ; and he who has faith in the legitimate 
ascendency of virtue and talent, and their inherent right to 
rule, should cherish it as the sacred pledge of the ultimate 
success of the human race in the career of self-government. 
In France, eternal distinctions classify the human species. 
Every caste has its uniform, and each can be as accurately 
classed by its covering and color as any cockle by the syster- 




A JUVENILE PORTER. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



183 



of Linnseus. There is no mistaking- the son of your porter for 
the heir of your friend the banker. The workmen of France 





A YOUNG PEER. 



THE "RED." THE " BLOUSE." 



have immortalized the blouse, and the sympathizing Red 
equally disdains the niceties of apparel or cleanliness of per- 
son. Every school and trade has its uniform or peculiar- 
ities of costume. The grand social aim would seem to be to 
classify society and isolate its professions, instead of blending 
them, by uniformity of dress and absence of artificial dis- 
tinctions, into one national brotherhood. In France, profes- 
sions, trades, and the various occupations of life are severally 
consolidated or protected by civic privileges, monopolies, or 
other legal distinctions, which perpetuate a spirit of class, and 
render it difficult for one to pass into the boundaries of anoth- 
er. But it is not my design in this place to particularize 
more than the fact of the existence of these social distinctions. 



CHAPTER IX, 

SKETCHES ABOVE GROUND AND BELOW GROUND. 

Who fails to notice in the streets of Paris those long, lugu- 
brious processions of ark-like coaches, blacker within and with- 
out than ravens, drawn by heavy black horses, with coal-black 
harness and plumes, and guided by drivers in the same som- 
bre livery, the tout ensemble affording the greatest conceivable 
contrast to the brilliant equipages so rapidly circulating about 
them ? As they trail through the streets with slow and solemn 
pace, they appear to be so many clumsily-carved masses of 
jet, overspread with palls, and animated with just sufficient 
life to grope their way blindly back to the dark mine whence 
they issued. In their presence the sunlight seems to scowl 
and shine askant. The gay crowd look at them as birds of 
evil omen, but respectfully make, as they pass, the only bows 
that do not call for a return. Yet at all hours they are to be 
seen, sometimes singly, standing like solitary crows in a corn- 
field before the entrance of some poverty-marked habitation ; 
at others, in long and pompous files, stretching from before a 
church-door, draperied with the costly tokens of death, far down 
the neighboring street. In the first instance, a poor man has 
died, and the undertaker, for a few francs only, undertakes to 
give only a few francs' worth of conventional respect to the 
mortal remains he unceremoniously hurries to its cheap grave. 
Not so in the second instance. A rich man may not have died, 
but the deceased has left enough to pay for the pompous fu- 
neral, which law and custom force the family to accept from 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 185 

the sole company that has the monopoly of interment for the 
city of Paris. It is rightly called the service-general of the 
'''Pompes Funehres .'^ It pays largely for its privilege, and en- 
joys in return the right to make dying a very expensive affair 
in Paris. The corpse belongs, not to friends, but to this com- 
pany, until the worms claim their prerogative. With us, a fu- 
neral is a simple, inexpensive affair, left, as all other individ- 
ual matters very properly are, to the dictates of the judgment 
or affection of those who are most interested. 

Not so here. A funeral, like every other ceremony, domes- 
tic or public, in France, must be converted into a spectacle. A 
dismal spectacle they make of it. Their black is an intensi- 
fied black, and their cross and skull bones of the most appal- 
ling patterns and colors. All that can make a funeral chilling 
and hollow is liberally provided. If to the present mercenary 
tokens of grief they would add the Polynesian custom of paid 
wailing and forced rivulets of tears, the spectacle would be 
more perfect of its kind. 

I may be considered as too severe on the system of funerals, 
but I have before me an official tariff of charges which shall 
be my evidence. Although nearly as large as one page of a 
penny newspaper, it embraces only the items for the third 
class of interments, that most commonly in vogue. In all, 
there are seven classes, the last and most expensive of which 
requires an outlay of not less than ten thousand francs for the 
journey from the church to the cemetery. 

This tariff is in the shape of a printed bill, with the price 
affixed to each article or person required, with blank spaces 
for the sums total. 

The department of religious ceremonies is divided into 
thirty-one distinct charges, embracing a total of two hundred 
and eighty-one francs for the Church. The jEirst item is the 
"Droit curial^^^ six francs ; the presence of the cure costs twelve 



186 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

francs ; vicars, three francs, and priests, two francs and a quar- 
ter each ; the " serpents," clerks, chanters, and red-capped boys 
are cheaper. Then corhe all the minor employes of the 
Church — beadles, Suisses, carriers of the cross, &c. : these re- 
ceive a franc and a half each. A deacon and sub-deacon, 
twelve francs ; a grand mass is cheap at three francs, but the 
extras swell it to a sum total in which the orio-inal charore is 
quite lost ; a gift to the altar, twelve francs ; two priests to go 
with the corpse to the cemetery, sixteen francs ; candles, 
ninety-six francs ; ornaments, censers, etc., at the altar and 
steps, including carpets and cross, holy water and candlesticks, 
forty-two francs ; tolling the bells, five francsT* This is for an 
ordinary funeral. It will be seen that the Church thrives, and 
drives a good bargain with the dead, 

Next we come to the lion's share, or the company's. This 
complete amounts to one thousand two hundred and thirty-four 
francs, divided as folloAvs : Expenses to the dead-house, one 
hundred and fifteen francs ; to the Church, seven hundred and 
fifteen ; for the cortege, four hundred and four. Some of the 
items of these charges sound singularly enough in a bill. For 
instance, the black cloth over the entrance to the house pays 
ten sous the yard ; thirty mourning-chairs pay each one franc 
and a half; a black foot-carpet, ten sous the yard; eight 
men in mourning, eight francs each , twelve torches, three 
francs each. The hearse, with the mourning for the horses, 
fringed with silver, plumes, etc., is charged at one hundred 
and twenty francs, and each black coach fifteen francs. 

There are twenty-nine distinct charges at the dead-house, 
of from one franc to fifty, embracing candles, sepulchral lampSj 
and antique drapery, curtains, fringes, stand for the holy wa- 
ter, a portable altar, a cricket to kneel upon in velvet embroi- 
dered with silver, and a variety of other articles difficult to 
translate into Protestant English. Among the Church and 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 187 



cortege charges are trophies of standards, candelabras, four al- 
legorical statues representing Religion and the theological Vir- 
tues — these cost two hundred francs ; cockades, grand liveries, 
a war-horse, equerries for war-horse, dress for domestics, a 
pair of weeping women in fine linen ^ ditto in fine crape ^ ditto in 
common, escutcheons and ciphers in velvet and silver, crowns 
and bouquets of orange-flowers, cloth for the poor, and a long 
list of other articles to swell the expense and pageantry. 
These last, however, are supplementary, and at the option of 
the family. 

It is cheaper to live than to die in Paris ; for, however dear 
may be the living to their friends, the dead are sure to be 
dearer, for a short period, at all events. For a stranger in a 
furnished apartment, the affair is still worse. The landlord 
claims the right to refurnish and refit the chamber at the ex- 
pense of the deceased. In an instance that came to my knowl- 
edge of an American gentleman who died, leaving two young 
daughters, as it were, unprotected, the landlord brought in an 
exorbitant bill for new furniture, paper, and paint, and seized 
the corpse for payment as it was leaving the house for the cem- 
etery. It is well, therefore, in a lease, to have the expense of 
dying agreed upon ; though, if it were not for the natural 
sentiment of respect to the dead, it would be a just retribution 
to leave in the hands of such a harpy a security which would 
not improve in keeping. 

Paris above . ground is an ever-changing panorama, which 
any one can view by paying for it ; sometimes the coin is 
simply money, or, cheaper and better yet, a little enterprise or 
exercise ; but too often it is a sight draught upon either health 
or morals. It is my endeavor to show it as it is, neither bet- 
ter nor worse, that those who visit it may go forewarned, 
while those who see it only through my telescope shall have 
cause to praise the clearness of its glasses. Few, however, 



188 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



think of glancing at subterranean Paris — that mighty labyrinth 
of streets beneath ground, seen but rarely by human eyes, but 
without which Paris above ground would be an unhabitable 
morass or a generator of pestilence. There is nothing here 
for show, but all for use. Built to endure for ages, and to sub- 
serve the necessities of millions of human beings, performing 
in the material economy of social life functions as important 
and as indispensable as the veins and arteries in physical life, 
they are worthy of a glance, at all events, that we may learn 
the labor and expense involved in lighting, watering, and 
cleaning a modeiii cupiUl. These indispensable offices are 




ABOVE AND BELOW GROUND. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



189 



all moving quietly on in their prescribed paths, unseen and 
almost unknown by the millions of noisy feet above them. 
Yet, should any derangement ensue, the health and comfort 
of the city is at once in jeopardy. Were the Tuileries con- 
sumed by fire, and the Arch of Triumph ingulfed in an earth- 
quake, the Parisians would simply have two fine monuments 
the less. But were the drains, water, and gas of Paris to be 
suddenly arrested, the city would become uninhabitable, and 
the ancient marshes of Lutece would regain their lost empire. 
It was not, however, until the commencement of the last cen- 
tury that a regular system of drainage was established. Jean 
Beausire was the architect first charged with these useful 
works. The system has been continually improved upon, un- 
til it has rendered Paris the cleanest and best-lighted capital 
in the world. To free the Seine, within the city limits, from 
the rivers of filth that are being continually discharged into 
its stream, it is proposed to construct on each bank two mam- 
moth drains, which shall receive the contents of all the minor 
ones, and, running parallel with the river, discharge their con- 
tents into it below the city. This 
would involve a prodigious out- 
lay, but would contribute great- 
ly to the comfort of the numer- 
ous bathing and washing estab- 
lishments, and possibly might 
induce some Parisians to try the 
virtues of river water occasion- 
ally as a beverage. 

Among the good things of Par- 
is, there is none which appeals 
more kindly to the stranger than 
the regularity and dispatch of 
the postal arrangements. Sure^ 




THE POSTMAN. 



190 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



ly no one will grudge the trifling gift at Ne'w Year expected 
by the postman, who so faithfully and promptly has delivered 
your letters the past twelve months, seeking you out perhaps 
in the remotest quarter of the city. He is a man of uniform, 
and tinged with a slight air of importance ; always on the 
move, and always with a smile to spare if he be able to re- 
spond to your eager expectations. 

Another convenience, and an ornamental one, recently 
adopted, are the pretty cast-iron boxes, in the shape of col- 



/I fi!\A 



s\ 




LETTER-BOX. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



191 



umns, placed about the city to receive the contributions for 
the general post-office. Their contents are emptied several 
times a day by the postal agents. But where the French post- 
office is unequaled, perhaps, by any other, is in the elegance 
and convenience of its ambulatory arrangements. The mov- 
ing post-office is an elegant car attached to the express trains, 
in which the postal service goes on as quietly and as uninter- 
ruptedly, while traveling at the rate of forty miles an hour, as 
if stationary in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. The mails 
are made up, letters received, weighed, stamped, and dispatch- 
ed en route. The two following cuts best illustrate this ad- 
mirable economy of time and distance. 




POST-CAR. 



The beautiful and the disgusting, the natural and the exag- 
gerated, the true and the false, the useful and the showy, are 
so intermingled in Paris, that it often takes but a step to pre- 
cipitate one from one extreme to the other. Yet it is this 
mixture, in which every art or passion finds an appropriate 
place, that gives this capital its unrivaled attractions. Every 
taste can be gratified, and every humor amused. Lessons 



193 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 





INTERIOR OF POST-CAR. 



of wisdom or texts for many a useful discourse are developed 
in rapid succession. Neither to a reflective or thoughtless 
mind need there be any approach to ennui. The very stones 
and shop windovi^s protest against it, v^^hile in the varying 
multitude there is a novelty for every minute. The art is to 
catch and apply the wit or moral as it floats rapidly past. To 
classify or arrange would be an impossible task, or, if possible, 
it would make the picture as rigid and uninviting as one of 
Cimabue's Holy Families. Better by far catch the manners as 
they rise, for one day's experience is no sure guide for its suc- 
cessor. If I glance hastily from one topic to another, blame 
not me, reader mine, but the variety that knows no end in the 
streets of Paris. I long ago thought I had exhausted the hu- 
morous fancies of the retail wine-dealers in their shops, from 
broad silver counters, to be measured by the square mHre, with 
walls presenting an unbroken line of mirrors, and ceilings 
sumptuous in gold and fresco, down to the meanest of the red- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 183 

republican dram-sliops, whose customers find a tonic in dirt 
and tobacco-smoke ; but one morning I stumbled upon one, 
the walls of which were lined with rows of various sized 
kegs and casks, the heads of each of which were looking- 
glasses. By this fancy the customer was sure to see in ad- 
vance the image of himself in the cask which perchance was 
destined to ingulf him, soul and body. One of the strolling 
theatres of the lowest character, on a fete Sunday at St. Cloud, 
. had for a sign large pictures on canvas, representing the De- 
scent from the Cross and the Raising of Christ. What ren- 
dered this the more extraordinary was the fact that, in gen- 
eral, their external attractions are very fair representations of 
the species of exhibition to be witnessed within. 

Humbug has a veritable organization at Paris, with its di- 
rectors, agents, tariff of prices, and machinery complete to ele- 
vate or depress an artist, author, or actor, as may be agreed 
upon with the parties interested. It even pervades the shops, 
the patronage of many of which is controlled by a species of 
advertising claquery, exceedingly diverting to the initiated, but 
expensive to the over-credulous. It is somewhat annoying, 
too, after having been plunged into ecstacies by the perusal 
of some much-talked-of and greatly-lauded literary work, 
christened with some famous name, to have a less verdant 
friend tell you that the only acquaintance the author in ques- 
tion has with it is the title-page and perhaps the preface, for 
affixing his name to which he pockets the price named in the 
contract as the equivalent of his reputation in the sale. But 
the greatest imposition upon the good-nature of the public, and 
upon their ears also, arises from the organized bands of cla- 
queurs which invade every place of amusement, and levy for- 
midable contributions upon directors, actors, and authors alike. 

After one has been led by the contagious force of example 
to join in a round of uproarious applause, with which som° fa- 

T 



194 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



vorite actor or piquant speech has been greeted, and, perhaps, 
been simple enough to add a bouquet to the pile cast at the 
feet of a pretty actress, whose emotions of gratitude, too pow- 
erful for speech, can only be expressed by a well-studied pan- 
tomime, it is as kill- 
ing to sentiment as 
frost is to flowers 
to hear a cynical 
Frenchman by your 
side, with a latent 
smile at your verd- 
ancy discernible on 
his otherwise polite 
features, coolly re- 
mark, " That cost 
fifty francs." You 
turn to him and ask 
for an explanation. 
Monsieur is always 
pleased to enlight- 
en strangers, even 
should the informa- 
tion convey no com- 
pliment to his own 
institutions. In the 
first place, he tells 
you never to take a 
seat in the centre of the parquette, just under the chandelier. 
You wonder at this, as it is really the best place in the house 
to see the stage and audience, but, after the explanation, you 
avoid it as you would one of the plagues of Egypt. It is the 
locality of the " claqueurs." Remark that group immediately 
under the chandelier, some fifty persons : they are called ^^Les 




NIL ADMIRARI. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 195 




LES CLAQUEUES. 



chevaliers du lustre.''^ See how periodically they applaud- 
how well they are drilled ; a hundred hands clapping in per- 
fect unison. They are like soldiers, and have their corporals 
and captains, whose motions they follow with all the regular- 
ity that a flock of geese follows its leader. There stands the 
" chef," the Napoleon of claqueurs. He has his receptions, his 
court, and is a sort of Fate to the corps dramatique, who must 
fee him well if they would not be forgotten in the distribution 
of applause and ''encores.^' As it is reasonable to suppose, 
when a French audience has a mercenary band to execute 



196 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



gratis for them all the clapping, stamping, and shouting, they 
do not trouble themselves much with such fatiguing ceremo- 
nies. If they are so far carried out of their dignified contempt 
for the claqueurs as to join in applause, it must be by some- 
thing decidedly good in their estimation. 

By this system of claquery — for such I call it, for want of a 
better word — almost every piece, however indifferent, is sure 
to have a career of fifteen or twenty representations. The 
chief marshals his forces to " chauffer'''' — warm up — the actors 
and the public. The degree of warmth h^ applies depends, 
of course, upon the price he receives. As the purse descends 
on one side of the scale, the applause rises in another. Bou- 
quets, jewelry, and involuntary ecstasies, judiciously brought 
in from stage-boxes, are supplementary ; but there are few, if 
any, actors or actresses independent of this species of clap- 
trap. The newspaper critics are as little to be depended upon 
for truth as the stunning homage of the claqueurs. I have not 
been able to learn where and how this system originated. At 
present it is in full force, and the only hope of its extinction is 

in its increasing abuse. The 
" chef de claque''' realizes not 
only power, but a tolerable for- 
tune, in a few years from this 
black-mail. He not only guar- 
antees the success or damn- 
ing of a piece — for which also 
he has his instruments — but 
he contracts with directors 
for the night's receipts, pay- 
ing perhaps fifteen hundred 
francs, and receiving two 
thousand, if he be successful 
in his mancBUvres, Decided- 




PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



197 



ly, one should either know much or know nothing to enjoy 
any thing at Paris. A half-way initiation, alternating be- 
tween faith and skepticism, is of all moods the most miserable. 
The doors of the theatres are beset by another species of 
agents, scarcely less annoying in their degree. If you arrive a 
little late, you are assailed by venders of billets at less than 
the regular rates. They arrest your progress at each step, and 




THE DOOR OF THE THEATRE. 



with an eloquence and impudence that would do credit to a 
New York hackman, endeavor to force their tickets into your 
hands. Should you leave the house before the entertainment 



198 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

is over, your path is even more perilous. " Will Monsieur sell 
his check ?" is shouted, in every key, by a dirty gang, from 
whose clutches one gladly escapes by throvi^ing at them the 
object of their pursuit. If, however, he be more tenacious, he 
can realize a trifling portion of the original price of his billet 
— a practice quite common with Frenchmen who do not stay 
out the afterpieces. 

The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties is a trite adage ; 
but few take notice of the difficulties attending some kinds 
of pleasure. I never realized this more forcibly than the oth- 
er evening at the Theatre Francaise, on one of Rachel's nights. 
Ascending the staircase, I noticed a crowd of ladies and gen- 
tlemen, attracted by some manoeuvre which greatly interested 
them. Joining the group, I became an equally interested 
spectator at once. Before them was a lady, richly dressed, of 
the circumference, moderately speaking, of a wine-pipe — in 
short, square, huge, fleshy, and clumsy ; a figure much as 
would appear two of Rubens's Flemish divinities if run into 
one body. There was a step of about six inches' elevation for 
her to surmount to enter her box. This she was utterly una- 
ble to do, unassisted. The door was little less than a pattern. 
However, she had come to see Rachel, and was not disposed 
to give it up. The gentleman attending her, not particularly 
slight himself, backed into the box, and took hold of each of 
her hands. A stout female servant placed herself on all-fours 
underneath the most accessible part of the stout dame, and 
gradually lifted her, by rising on her hands and feet, as a sort 
of lever, as the gentleman pulled. For a little while it was 
uncertain whether the lady would succeed in passing through 
the door, or fall back and exterminate the panting servant be- 
neath her ; but her flesh being pliant, and the woman strong, 
with a final pull and bout all together, she at last passed in. 
A more ridiculous sight no comedy could have afforded ; yet 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 199 

French politeness was proof against a change of countenance 
during the operation beyond a slight expression of amaze- 
ment at the novelty of the hoisting arrangement. An English 
crowd would have- laughed and cheered. 

With all the rage for amusements that pervades the French 
metropolis, the theatrical enterprise is a very uncertain one. 
Without the aid of government, the large theatres and operas 
could not subsist on their present scale of magnificence. Few 
of the minor ones pay. The most successful is the Funam- 
bules, which owes its popularity to the prince of low fun, 
Pierrot, who is to France what Pulcinello is to Italy. The 
Yaudeville, which cost 3,467,000 francs, was sold in 1832 for 
1,100,000 francs ; yet its gains the past winter from one play, 
La Dame des Camelias, alone were 100,000 francs. 

M. Barthelemy, a young man of science and fortune, has con- 
structed, at his own expense, an immense theatre on an alto- 
gether new model. His object is to moralize the masses by 
combining instruction with amusement, particularly in bring- 
ing upon the stage historical pieces. As yet his success is un- 
certain, as the hall has been used only for concerts. It holds 
about thirty-five hundred persons, and is a vast semi-elliptic 
of a cupola, with three rows of boxes, and galleries of a novel 
and daring architecture. It is so constructed for music that 
smaller orchestras and less powerful singers produce better 
effects than those of other theatres, the sounds not being lost 
in the hot air above, as elsewhere. The orchestra is placed 
above the stage, so that the attention of the public is not dis- 
tracted from the stage by the movements of the musicians and 
their huge instruments. There are no foot-lights, but the hall 
is brilliantly illuminated by an ingenious light made to imitate 
the rays of the sun, and so suspended that it does not incon- 
venience the eyes of the spectators. The aim of M. Barthele- 
my in reforming the stage, both in a moral and architectural 



200 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




NEW THEAir.E. 



view, deserves the countenance of the government. Better 
still were they to close to the public their school of deprava- 
tion of manners, and petrifying of the kindly sympathies of 
the heart. The daily exhibition at the Morgue of the naked 
corpses of the criminal dead, or victims of despair, attracts a 
constantly changing crowd of young and old of both sexes, who, 
with cold curiosity, examine the lifeless bodies, exciting in each 
other laughter by emulous jokes, and even obscene remarks. 
Perhaps a mother, with grief too deep for utterance, recog- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 201 

nizes on the cold marble the graceful form of a daughter, who, 
with a smile of temporary farewell on her lips, left her hut a 
few hours before. A mortal accident has overtaken her, and 
she now lies there dead, and stripped to the very verge of in- 
decency. The spectators acknowledge no relationship with 
either the mourned or the mourner. " Ah ! how unfortunate 
so handsome a girl should drown herself!" exclaims one. 
"What a beautiful carcass she makes!" says another, still more 
rudely. The children press between the adults to see the 
sight, listen to the comments of their elders, and then retire, 
having taken their first lesson in the school of inhumanity. 

Unfortunately, human nature is more susceptible to evil 
than to good impressions, otherwise the pernicious influences 
of the Morgue might be more than counteracted by the daily 
exhibition of a charity whose zeal and purity admit of no 
earthly alloy. None can question the claim of the Sisters of 
Charity to these qualities, when it is remembered that theirs 
alone, of all the institutions of the Catholic Church, went 
through the Revolution of 1789, not only unmolested, but sus- 
tained and respected. In every age since their institution, and 
among all nations that they have visited, they have proved 
themselves angels of mercy. They have nursed the sick, com- 
forted the afflicted, dispensed to the needy of every rank or na- 
tion, not only the gifts of charity, but performed by the bedside 
of loathsome pestilence or repulsive poverty those last offices 
from which relationship fled appalled, and which none but 
woman, who borrows her inspiration from those of her sex 
who were last at the cross and first at the grave can perform. 
As they were generations since, so are they now, the same de- 
voted soldiers of humanity, whether amid Canadian snows 
or tropical heats ; constant at the bedside of disease and 
death, carrying help and hope across the threshold of pov- 
erty, comforting and taming maniac violence or criminal de- 

12 



202 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 












\|iAr^|iiii, 




SISTER OF CHARITY. 

sire by that principle whose soft answers and heavenly deeds 
turn away wrath, and bring alike all human passion submissive 
and hopeful at the feet of a Savior. French wit, philosophy, 
skepticism, and revolutions have equally respected the Sisters 
of Charity. Infidels and atheists. Republicans and Imperial- 
ists, enemies and friends of Rome, have each, in turn, acknowl- 
edged their services to humanity, as they, in turn, have been 
ministered to by them. Their rule is that of universal broth- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 203 

erhood, their sacrifice tlie entire renunciation of the world, and 
their faith is that active charity which is the bond of peace 
and good-will among men. True it is that among Protestants 
there are many sisters whose charity and faith equal theirs, and 
whose good works, done in secret, are not known from the 
right hand to the left. Theirs is the unorganized charity of the 
heart — the spontaneous offering of individual piety. But while 
distinctions and organizations exist among mankind, the hum- 
ble garb of the Sisters of Charity, as they pass silently and 
quietly throught the streets of Paris on their errands of mercy, 
will serve to remind both the Protestant and Catholic that the 
religion that visits and comforts the widow and fatherless still 
exists in the world. It would be well for their souls were 
they to go and do likewise. 

Let not Protestants suppose that the old, disappointed, or af- 
flicted — those only to whom the world offers but little — are to 
be found in their ranks. On the contrary, the young, comely, 
and accomplished have their representatives. Theirs is not 
either an oath of seclusion or of perpetuity. On the contrary, 
they see daily the outer world in all its brightness and attrac- 
tions. They mingle in its throngs, and they pass from their 
plain cells or the bedsides of squalor and disease to the homes 
of affluence. The contrast between a life of worldly enjoy- 
ment and self-renunciation is constantly before them. More- 
over, they are free at any time to leave the sisterhood and join 
again the circles they have forsaken. Under these circum- 
stances, can there exist a doubt of their sincerity and purity ? 
Parisian levity, which spares nothing else, sacred or profane, 
spares them. They never have to blush at false charges and 
insinuated scandal. The Popes have endeavored to introduce 
them into Italy, there being no counterpart among the Italian 
orders to theirs. As yet, Italian women have failed to imitate 
their purity and devotion. A few French sisters have been 



204 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

induced to establish themselves at In aples, where their good 
works are no less acknowledged and appreciated than at Paris. 
I shall never forget the impression made upon me in convers- 
ing with a still young and fair sister in the sacristy of the 
chapel to the Hospital of the Insane at Avignon. She had 
taken us there to show us a wonderful ohject of art, in the 
form of a dead Christ upon the cross, cut out of a single piece 
of ivory, exhibiting on one side of the face an expression of 
agony, and on the other calm resignation. She spoke of her 
own situation with an accent of sorrowful satisfaction — sorrow 
that there was so much wretchedness, and satisfaction that 
she could labor for its consolation. She was free to go back 
to her friends, yet she preferred to live there, as she had al- 
ready for thirteen years, performing the most menial offices 
for the insane. " The work is hard and constant," said she, 
" because there are but few of us to perform it for more than 
one hundred patients, yet we shall continue to do it while we 
live." As we dropped some pieces of money into the cup 
placed to receive them, she quietly remarked, " You know this 
is not for us, but for the poor insane whom we nurse ; it all 
goes to them." There was an air of calm piety and unobtru- 
sive meekness, combined with grace and intelligence, about 
her, that made me feel that such a nurse at a sick bedside 
would prove at once a physician for the body and a mission- 
ary to the soul. In requesting a glass of water, her hospital- 
ity insisted upon our making use of the communion wine, 
apologizing for its not being of better quality. I took leave 
of her with increased respect for the order to which she be- 
longed, and regret that the Church of Home was not as purely 
represented in all its institutions and ministers ; not without, 
I may as well confess it, a twinge of compunction at the un- 
fruitfulness of my own life in good works and self-renuncia- 
tion as compared with hers. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



205 



To write of the condition of a people, and omit to give their 
numbers, wealth, poverty, and the figures that show plainer 
than the most lively description their virtues and their vices, 
would be like painting a landscape without a ground-work, 
or trying to set up a human figure without the frame -work of 
bones. America has had the equivocal compliment to lend 
her name in Europe to more than one species of dissipation 
or crime, indicating thus the source from which it has been 
borrowed. Any species of robbery requiring peculiar ^we^^e 
is called "wn vol a V Americaine ;^^ and there is a gambling 
game — shades of our Pilgrim fathers, close your ears ' — known 
in Europe simply as " Boston." It is to be devoutly hoped 
that no such accomplishment derived its origin from that city 
of " steady habits." 
The most quiet and 
unsuspicious of rob- 
beries is that per- 
formed by means of 
false hands, the op- 
eration of which the 
adjoining cut shows 
better than can be 
described in words. 
The English have 
the reputation of be- 
ing the most adroit 
in this species of 
theft, for the exer- 
cise of which omni- 
buses afford a very 
convenient field. 

The refuse popu- 
lation of Paris, either pickpocket. 




%QQ 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



too poor to be reputed honest, or too criminal to have any pre- 
tensions to such a reputation, is estimated by M. Fregier at 
63,000 ; but it is unnecessary to suppose that all these are 
actively engaged in evil doing. The average number of the 
imprisoned for all causes in France at one time is about 50,000, 
and during the year, 200,000. The expense of their detention 
is 20,000,000 francs, a legal tax which crime levies annually 
upon society, independent of the indirect contributions, in the 
shape of thefts and robberies, the amount of which there is no 
means of estimating. Great as this may be, it falls far short 
of the contributions exacted by mendicity and poverty. The 
French are not, as the Italians, a race of beggars. With the 
latter it is a profession, but with the former simply a necessity. 
There is too much fiery self-respect and genuine politeness in 
Gallic nature to produce a race of mendicants. Besides, the 
government discountenances it by severe measures so efTect- 




THE POLICE AND MENDICANTS. 



ually that a stranger who glances superficially at Paris may 
doubt, as did Sir Francis Head, if there are any wretchedly poor. 
They are effectually concealed in stone mansions and narrow 
streets, the external appearance of which, however much it may 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 207 



contrast with the brilliant Boulevards, but indifferently gauges 
the depths of misery within them. Besides, the mendicity, 
which is able occasionally, in despite of the police, to show its 
head in some of its Protean shapes, is of that reckless, swin- 
dling character, which either amuses by its cunning or chills by 
its impudence. In 1656, so great was this evil, that it was 
forbidden, under the penalty of a heavy fine, to give to beg- 
gars in the street under any pretext whatsoever, or to receive 
them into lodging-houses. The official number of " mendi- 
cants" in France is 4,000,000, or one in nine of the entire pop- 
ulation. As many more are supposed to require more or less 
assistance from charity each year. If the destitution of France 
among its poorer classes assumes a magnitude that to the citi- 
zens of the United States would seem of gigantic proportions, 
public and private charity swells in a corresponding ratio. 
There is nothing in which France appears to better advantage 
than the scale on which she organizes her benevolence. It 
bespeaks a sensitiveness to the sufferings of humanity which 
does her high honor, and shows that in the Christian rule of 
good works she has made rapid progress, whatever she may 
lack in sound faith. The gifts and legacies to the hospitals 
and benevolent institutions from 1800 to 1846 have amounted 
to upward of 122,000,000 francs, increasing largely in the later 
years. This is exclusive of other charities, which are esti- 
mated at as much more, making a total of 45,000,000 of dol- 
lars. The official budget of charity for 1844 appropriates 
25,000,000 of dollars for this object; but this includes the reg- 
ular revenues of the hospitals, which amount to nearly two 
thirds of that sum. The property belonging to the 1388 hos- 
pitals of France is valued at 100,000,000 of dollars, producing 
a net income of about 2,500,000 dollars, and the number of 
sick received annually not far from 500,000. The inhabitants 
of the large towns absorb nearly all the revenues of the hos- 



208 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

pitals, the thirty millions of the peasantry being left almost 
destitute. The hospitals in the cities are so liberally provided 
for that it has been seriously questioned whether they did not 
augment public distress by diminishing private responsibility. 
M. Moreau Christophe, after stating the enormous amount 
which it annually costs to support beggary, makes the very 
significant inquiry whether a less sum, wisely expended, would 
not suffice to extinguish it entirely. 

These expenditures, heavy as they are and must be, when 
we are informed that, in 1836, of the deaths in Paris, more than 
two fifths took place in the hospitals, give but a faint idea of 
the extent of the benevolence of the French nation. There 
are in Paris alone more than one hundred and eighty private 
charitable societies and institutions. But, in spite of all this 
array of charity, there is a fearful amount of suffering and des- 
titution in Paris. The public statistics show that the number 
who die annually from sheer starvation is by no means too in- 
considerable to be overlooked in the bills of mortality. 

While speaking of the charitable institutions of France, we 
must not omit to mention one, the utility of which is more than 
questionable, although there can be no doubt as to the benev- 
olent motives in which it had its origin. We refer to the 
Foundling Hospital. Any parent to whom the birth of a child 
is a shame, or its maintenance an inconvenience, has but to re- 
pair to the gate of the hospital, deposit the infant in a " tour,''^ 
or box turning upon a pivot, ring a bell which summons a 
porter, and the care for the life of the young being, which na- 
ture has so strictly devolved upon those who gave it birth, is 
at once and forever thrown upon strangers. The strongest ar- 
gument urged in favor of this institution is, that the lives of 
many children are preserved who would otherwise have been 
ra.urdered before or directly after birth. But when we take 
into account the fearful mortality of the infants thus given into 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 209 

the charge of hired nurses, there is good reason to apprehend 
that the institution occasions a greater loss of life than it saves. 
I have not at hand the hospital statistics of the last few years ; 
but, according to those of the latest year within our present 
reach, out of 28,942 births, 4792 were abandoned by their 
parents and sent to the hospital. Any institution which ena- 
bles and induces the parents of one sixth of the children born 
in the capital of a Christian country, with perfect impunity and 
without fear of detection, to abandon their offspring almost im- 
mediately after birth, must be productive of far more evil than 
it prevents. The great law of nature, that the mother shall 
have charge of her infant, can not thus be set aside with im- 
punity ; nor, I apprehend, is the facility with which infants 
may thus be disposed of without a very important bearing upon 
the vast proportion which the illegitimate births in Paris bear 
to the legitimate. In the same year 6f which we have spoken 
above, one third of the births were of the former character. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE GENERATIONS OF FASHION. 

If there be one earthly object more deserving of pity than 
another, what do you think it is, curious reader ? As a Yan- 
kee, with all your inherited cuteness, you will never guess. 
I leave that to a Frenchman ; and, not to keep you longer in 
suspense — the worst possible policy for an author — I will tell 
you. It is an '■^ old fashion.'''' How many delicately-chiseled 
noses are turned up at that irrevocable sentence of condemna- 
tion, while disgust at the sight, and amazement at the audaci- 
ty of the shop-keeper, play about the lines of the fairest 
mouths as their lovely possessors turn their backs peremp- 
torily upon an article which but a month before was the cov- 
eted object of all eyes — " a perfect beauty" — " a sweet love" — 
with an exclamatory " Pooh ! it is old-fashioned." To use an 
expressive, though vulgar phrase, that is a " clincher." The 
fate of an old pot is not more hopeless. When once that 
Mede and Persian fiat has gone forth from feminine lips, ev- 
ery body is at liberty to give it another crack. A shop-keeper 
might as profitably employ his time in searching for the phi- 
losopher's stone, as his eloquence in endeavoring to sell any 
thing once put under the ban of fashion. The interdict of 
beauty is upon it. Accursed of good taste has it become, and 
excommunicated from the depths of every well-filled purse. 
No matter how becoming it has been considered a few short 
weeks before, whatever may be its intrinsic merits of elegance, 
art, or costliness ; however much human brains and hands 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 211 

have labored to make it a combination of utility and beauty, 
it is now a sunken, degraded thing, despised of women and 
scorned of men, barely tolerated by the necessities of poverty, 
or reduced to seek a home in the haunts of vice. 

This caprice, which looks only to change for its aliment, is 
as old as human invention. I make no doubt that Eve never 
wore twice the same pattern of fig-leaves, while Adam search- 
ed diligently the forests through to diversify the colors of his 
vegetable breeches. The Polynesian turns to nature for his 
book of fashions, and seeks to rival the hues of the bird of 
Paradise in the ample folds of his brilliant-colored "tappas." 
Every savage finds his greatest wants in the bright gewgaws 
of civilization. If there be a nation on earth that clings to its 
old clothes and furniture because they are good and useful ; 
that deprecates change as innovation upon good habits and 
customs ; that does not dive into the bowels of the earth, fish 
the seas, and penetrate the heavens, racking nature to find 
material wherewith to distort and crucify nature in form, 
stuff, and pattern, out of sheer disgust of the old and capri- 
cious love for the new, 1 have yet to discover it. 

A passion so universal must be productive of more good 
than evil, or else it would die of neglect. At first glance, 
nothing appears more unreasonable, and more destructive of 
excellence, than this devotion to variety. The " love" of one 
season is the " fright" of the next. No sooner have we rec- 
onciled our eyes and shoulders to one fit, and begun to think 
it tolerable, than we abandon it for some fresh abomination 
of the tailor or modiste, and recommence our penance of new- 
formed inexpressibles and new-cut whalebone. Every change 
of coat or boot is another martyrdom. The rack has indeed 
left the halls of justice, but it has taken up its residence on 
the counters of St. Crispin and kindred saints. Human flesh 
has become a mere machine — a sort of clay model — for the 



214 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

masters and mistresses of the shears and needles to fit their 
garments upon. Bone and muscle are secondary in their sys- 
tem ; the primary object is to display their " fashions," which, 
as they are mainly, of late, of the grotesque order, we may 
class, according to the views of R-uskin's architecture, rather 
as the labor of little minds than the repose of great. 

So in other things. We no sooner combine utility and 
beauty, forming an article which is truly excellent in itself, 
than we abandon it, and content ourselves with some crude 
novelty, to be discarded, in its turn, as soon as it has advanced 
through its several degrees of fashion to any thing like com- 
fortable excellence. An individual who ventures to like what 
suits him well, in oj)position to the novel and fashionable, be- 
comes a pariah at once. He is abandoned of society — lucky 
if known as nothing worse than an " odd, old-fashioned fel- 
low," and of no more account in creation than a dead leaf. In 
usual they are doomed to equal consideration with an old hat, 
substituting a stale joke for the decided kick, either of which 
is an effectual barrier to the firmament of fashion. 

If this love of variety had no other recommendation than to 
prevent repletion in the purses of the rich, it would still be a 
social blessing. It feeds, clothes, and houses half the world. 
It feels the way to artistic perfection, opens the doors to in- 
genuity, favors invention, and prevents mental stagnation. 
Costly and annoying to the individual it may be, but to the 
nation it is beneficial. The very whims of beauty are so 
much bounty to industry and art. Mere dandyism is the rust 
of civilization. Like corroded steel, it shows the most where 
the polish is most brilliant. 

Paris is the central star of fashion. Whatever is seen else- 
where is a ray from her light, diminishing in lustre as it re- 
cedes from that city. The French, under Napoleon, by force 
of arms sought to win a universal empire. Failing in this, 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 215 



they have since employed the more subtle weapons of taste 
and fashion to attain the same end. Their conquests extend 
with a rapidity that far surpasses the warlike exploits of the 
"Grand Empereur." There is not a race on the globe that 
does not seem destined to lose its national costumes and hab- 
its before the invincible power of French fashions. They 
have penetrated the huts of the South Sea savages. They 
march with the rapidity of commerce along the steppes of 
Central Asia, and have climbed the Chinese wall. The tur- 
ban of the descendants of the Prophet rolls in the dust before 
the hat of the infidel. This infiltration of Parisian fashions 
is seen every where ; sometimes with an elegance that rivals 
Paris itself, but more often with an awkward imitation de- 
structive of every grace of the original. It threatens to sub- 
jugate every European costume, however venerable from an- 
tiquity or picturesque in effect. The traveler must hasten if 
he would see what remains of the beautiful or odd in the 
dresses of the Italian, the national costumes of the Swiss, the 
furred robes of the Pole, and the medley mediaeval civilization 
of the Asiatic and European tribes that now are ruled by the 
Autocrat of all the R-ussias. The conquests of the modistes 
are wider than those of the marshals. 

A French army of " artistes" have insinuated themselves, 
as worms into old books and furniture, into every cranny of 
past civilization. They are rapidly undermining every habit, 
both of the body and for the body, of the past. At present 
the adulterine mixture is becoming to neither condition ; but 
before the army of French cooks, dancing-masters, tailors, 
modistes, coifTeurs, valets, femmes-de-chambre, and mechan- 
ics of knick-knackery, every other knick-knackery and fash- 
ion, not absolutely Parisian in its origin and education, is 
rapidly giving way. AVhether this is an incipient stage of 
the Millennium or not, when mankind are to be all brethren, 



216 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



alike in speech, habits, and rule, remains to be seen. This 
much we know, that French millinery is the dominant power 
of civilization. England's Glueen and Russia's Czar alike ac- 
knowledge its supremacy. Parisian fashion, which, like oth- 
ers, once had a local character of its own, has now becora.e a 
cosmopolite, making itself equally at home in Timbuctoo as in 
the Champs Elysees. 

Whether the world will gain in picturesque effect by the 
obliteration of national costumes may well be doubted ; but 
whether French taste has not a wide gulf yet to pass before 
it can make any thing graceful and comfortable of the stove- 
pipe hat, dismal colors, and swaddling clothes to which it 
dooms its male devotees, is no matter of doubt at all. It is in 
the infancy of its empire, and has yet much to learn before 
mankind will acknowledge its sway an easy one. The most 
that can now be said in its favor is that, in its restlessness, it 
may by chance hit upon some combination which shall recon- 
cile comfort and beauty. But we very much fear, if it suc- 
ceeded in this, that it would not allow it to live a month. 

One secret of Parisian success in the empire of fashion is 
this. In the past it cunningly borrowed of all nations every 
peculiarity that could be turned to account in its own rage for 
novelty. The Romans admitted the deities of conquered na- 
tions into their mythology without scrutiny. Their great schem.e 
of government comprehended every worship, provided it was 
not purer than their own. Parisians borrowed every hue and 
cut from rival costumes, and transformed them to their own 
tastes and purposes. Receiving every thing in the beginning, 
they have ended by giving every thing ; and the whole world 
now looks to Paris as the arbitress of fashion, as the Jew does 
to Jerusalem, and the Romanist to Rome, for the seat of their 
religions. 

With all this, however, the French once had fashions pe- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



217 



culiarly their own. Indeed, their empire is of very recent 
date, and it is well worth our trouble to go back a little, and 
see by what strange metamorphoses French taste has as- 
sumed its present shape. To do this, I shall be compelled to 
illustrate freely, for two reasons. I detest the technicalities 
of dress, and if I employed the terms in description, I could 
neither understand the costumes myself or make them intel- 
ligible to my readers ; 



therefore I shall adopt 
the better method of 
letting them see for 
themselves. 

After gunpowder 
had put an end to 
metallic armor, the 
French nobles, by the 
usual force of contra- 
diction, ran into the 
opposite extreme, and 
from iron by the pound 
on their necks, began 
to wear costly lace 
and ribbons by the 
yard. This in time 
subsided into the most 
elegant of court-dress- 
es, though too effem.- 
inate in its charac- 
ter for any but aris- 
tocratic idlers. Such 
was the costume of 
the perfumed gallants 
who crowded the an- 




COUKT DRESS, 1775. 



K 



218 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

te-chambers of Pompadour and Du Barri. Intrigue was the 
business of their lives ; they looked, acted, studied, and, above 
all, dressed with the paramount view of captivating the fairer 
sex. Dressing, therefore, was a laborious and protracted op- 
eration, which demanded all the powers of the mind. It was 
well if the gallant who commienced it as soon as he rose from 
his couch at noon, finished his labor of love by three o'clock. 
The hands, withdrawn from the night-gloves, must be soaked 
for a long time in lotions and washes, to remove any discolor- 
ation or roughness ; the cheeks were to be tinted with car- 
minatives to give a bloom to the complexion, pallid from last 
night's debauch ; every envious pimple must be hidden by a 
patch ; the clothes must be perfumed, the linen powdered to 
overcome the smell of soap. The proper tying of the cravat 
was the great labor of the day ; this performed, the wig and 
hat properly adjusted, the most captivating attitudes and 
graces carefully studied before the mirror, and the French no- 
ble of a few years before the Revolution was prepared for the 
conquests of the day. But, before this elaborate costume was 
finally swept away by the Revolution, there was a brief epi- 
sode of simplicity. Franklin made his appearance at court in 
a suit of sober brown. All heads were turned. Lace, and 
embroidery, and powdered curls were discarded. Straight 
brown coats and straight cut hair became the mode of the 
moment. 

The habit succeeding this was based upon the old English 
frock-coat, with its ample and awkward folds, which, by some 
unaccountable freak, became all at once the rage at Paris. 
The Duke de Lauroquais used to say that the English frock- 
coat gave a mortal wound to the costume of the French no- 
blesse, which speedily degenerated, with its brocade and gay 
colors, into a disguise for the Carnival or a dress for a mas- 
querade ball ; while the new costume, which was half adopted 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 219 




THE FASHIONS FOR 1787. 



by the ladies, became in 1787 as we see it in the cut which 
we present above. 

Black, which heretofore had been the obscure color confined 



220 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

to lawyers, authors, and all those who then formed the connect- 
ing link between the vulgar and the fashionable Avorld, now 
suddenly took a start, and became the " ne plus ultra" of gen- 
tility. The pre-eminence then attained by it for gentlemen 
has been retained to this day, while colors are banished to the 
street or masquerades. At this time, too, that abomination of 
abominations for the covering of the head, known as the 
modern hat, began to assume its present hideous shape, 
for which the transformer deserves the pains of decapitation. 
Expensive lace became the passion of the dandies, who 
piqued themselves upon having a different variety for each 
season. 

It was the fashion, also, for gentlemen to wear much costly 
jewelry, as another mode of distinguishing themselves from 
the plebeian crowd. In 1780 was introduced the singularity 
of wearing two watches at once, burdened with immense 
chains. This was also adopted by the ladies. The custom 
now appears ridiculous, but, in repJity, it is no more so than 
the present one of loading a vest with a huge bundle of non- 
descript jewelry — coral and bone arms, legs, and death's-heads 
— under the name of charms. The Marshal Richelieu was 
one of the first to carry two watches. One day a caller, by 
some mischance, threw them both on the floor. He began to 
overwhelm the Marshal with excuses. " Make yourself easy," 
replied the veteran of politeness, " I never saw them go so 
well together before.'" 

The ladies, not to be outdone in extravagance by their lords, 
turned their attentton to their hair, and invented the strangest 
coiffures. The Roman ladies, in their rage for red perukes, 
frequently sacrificed their own raven locks altogether, and 
accumulated several hundred of different shades in a short 
time. The passion of the French was for white. A carica- 
ture of 1778 gives an idea of the height to which they car- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 221 



ried their new fashion, v/hich, after 
all, was not much above the truth. 

The chronicles of the day are 
filled with scandalous stories of the 
relations between the grand dames 
and the artists thus admitted to the 
solitude and privacy of their bed- 
chambers. The art of the 
coiffeurs became a great 
one in the eyes of fash- 
ion. A wTJVk on the sub- 
ject was pub- 
lished at eight 
dollars the vol- 
ume. The pro- 
fessors became 
rich and distin- 
guished. The 
handsome Leo- 
nard, who was 
the coiffeur of 
the queen, Ma- 
ria Antoinette, 

succeeded in using upward of fourteen yards of gauze upon 
a single head, which acquired for him a European renown. 

The turbans and bonnets of this epoch were equally extrav- 
agant. The coiffures of the ladies became so high that the 
face seemed to be in the middle of their bodies ; and the di- 
rector of the Opera was compelled to make a rule that- no lady 
with a head-dress above a certain height should be admitted 
into the amphitheatre, because the spectators were unable, on 
account of them, to see the stage. If the ladies are induced 
to class them as "frights," let them, consider that, in their day, 




CAKICATURE, 1778. 



222 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




HEAD-DRESS, 1785. 

they were considered equally as becoming as the present 
styles. 

It was in vain that the caricaturists leveled their weapons 
at these towering head-dresses. " Top-knots" would not " come 
down." They waxed higher and higher, threatening to rival 
the tower of Babel, until the Q/Ueen was attacked by a violent 
illness, which occasioned the loss of the flaxen locks that had 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



233 




called forth the genius of the coiffeurs. At once down went 
the towering piles, like castles in the clouds. Every lady at 
court appeared with a flat head. The next great change in 
ladies' gear was wrought by a philosopher and poet. St. 
Pierre put forth his Paul et Virgime, and all Paris went mad 
for simplicity and nature. He attired his heroine in simple 
white muslin, with a hat of plain straw. The volatile Paris- 



224 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




lennes were captivated. Silks and satins, powder and poma- 
tum, vanished as if by magic, and, from queen to waiting-maid, 
nobody appeared except in white muslins and straw hats. 

Greography was ransacked to find names for these remarka- 
ble superstructures for the head. Thus there were bonnets a 
la Turke, a I'Autriche, and, even as early as 1785, America 
was honored in having one style, called a la Philadelphie ; 
finally, the wits, or the geographical knowledge of the milli- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



225 



ners being exhaust- 
ed, they christened 
their latest inven- 
tion, in despair, the 
" anonymous bon- 
net." 

Paris, in the year 
1851, no sooner set 
eyes on the would- 
be American fashion 
of Bloomerism, with 
its short skirts and 
trowsered legs, than 
it completely extin- 
guished it by one 
blast of its all-pow- 
erful ridicule. Yet, 
as long ago as 1772, 
it had adopted a 
mode, compounded 
from the Polonaise, 
equally as open to 
objection, so far as scantiness of petticoats was concerned, with 
the addition of heels several inches in height, and walking- 
sticks which might easily be mistaken for boarding-pikes. 

The extravagance and luxury of the fashionables of both 
sexes immediately preceding the Revolution, which was des- 
tined to ingulf them and their fortunes, were such as almost 
to palliate the excesses of the people who had so long and pa- 
tiently borne Avith the heartlessness and vices of the aristoc- 
racy. There was a rivalry among the great lords and bankers 
as to who should ruin themselves soonest for the favorite ac- 
tresses of the day. Then courtesans rode in their carriages 

K2 




BONNET, 17! 



226 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 




BONNET, 1786. 

made with panels of porcelain, silver spokes, drawn by six 
horses, and attended by mounted servants in livery. Even 
royalty was scandalized and outdone by the magnificence of 
their equipages, hotels, and houses of pleasure. The nobles, 
as if with a presentiment of their coming fate, hastened to 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 227 




ffl Willi (iJir 

THE FASHIONS, 178/, 'fab. 

pour into tlie laps of their mistresses their entire fortunes, 
seeking to drown in refined debauchery the thunder of the 
storm that already began to roll over their heads. 

Among the follies which the fashions of this date presented 
was the confusion which arose between male and female at- 
tire. Men borrowed the laces, ruffles, belts, jewelry, and fine- 



228 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ry of the women. They, in revenge, took the coats, vests, 
open shirts, cravats, powdered queues, canes, and even cloth 
frock-coats of the men. The fashion of the male for one 
month was frequently adopted for the mode of the female for 
the next. Sexual proprieties in dress were utterly confounded, 
and this medley of apparel extended in some degree to habits 
and pursuits. The ladies seized upon the studies and occupa- 
tions of men. Many of their conquests they have retained to 
this day, as any one conversant with Paris can perceive. 

In the midst of this extravagance came the Revolution. 
The etiquette and magnificence of the old society disappeared 
in the vortex of the social whirlpool. Diamonds and lace, 
flowers and plumes, embroidered coats and satin robes, all the 
luxurious and costly creations of past fashion, sunk more rap- 
idly than they arose. Fortunes were annihilated in a day. 
Royalty even put on plebeian shoes, mounted the coarse cap 
of the worker, and shouted the hollow cry oi'-'- Egalite .'" Uni- 
versal brotherhood was on the lips of men, and universal hate 
in their hearts. Religion and decency fled in affright. It 
was the advent of sans-culottism. For a while, coarseness and 
vulgarity, under the garbs of equality and fraternity, reigned 
triumphant. For a time they took the form of Anglo-mania. 
This was before the advent of the " classical" era. The club- 
bists carried enormous cudgels, wore thick shoes and coarse 
coats, and in all ways endeavored to transform themselves 
into blackguards, with the most complete success. The stones 
of the Bastile were made up into patriotic breast-pins for the 
bosoms of beauty. Copper buckles replaced the gold and sil- 
ver of former years. Wealth and fashion, once so inordinately 
displayed, were now the sure tokens of destruction. Safety 
was only in abject humility and conspicuous poverty. But 
French nature, though it conld endure the tyranny of political 
Jacobinism, was restless under the extinction of fashion and 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 229 



obliteration of clean breeches. It soon rebelled ; discarding all 
past inventions, it struck out new and tenfold more ridiculous 
costumes than before. The fashion-plates of that time reveal 
this rebellion against sans-culottism, in a thousand comical 
ways. A view of the rendezvous of the fashionable world, 
the garden of the famous " Palais Royal," as it existed in 1792, 
would better illustrate the " cut" of the day than pages of de- 
scription. The different political parties displayed their mu- 
tual hatred, not so much in words, which they dared not utter, 
as in the silent but mocking eloquence of dress. The popular 
tri-colors and cut and unpowdered hair remained, however, in 
the ascendency. But neither the horrors of the scaffold nor 
the brutalities of Jacobinism could long suppress the preten- 
sions of the young elegants to dress as they pleased. Indeed, 
it became a species of heroism, by extravagant finery and out- 
rageous taste, joined to a mincing, effeminate voice, to throw 
contempt upon the coarseness of their political opponents. 
The ^^jeunesse doree'^ of this period were clerks, young law- 
yers, and others of equally humble origin, who, having aided 
in destroying the old aristocracy, now sought to excel them in 
vice and folly. 

Each succeeding year gave origin to fashions, if possible, 
more absurd than the preceding. The moral chaos that pre- 
vailed in France affected all material things. Dress was not 
only more or less typical of politics, but illustrative of the 
classical theories of the times. The military scholar of the 
school of Mars, in 1793, wore a mongrel uniform, invented by 
the painter David, and intended to be partly Roman, partly 
Grecian, but which any old legendary or phalanx veteran of 
Csesar or Alexander would have indignantly rejected as whol- 
ly French. 

Upon the overthrow of Robespierre, fashion took for a time 
a strange turn. A year before, men went in red night-caps, 




THE MOPE, 1800. 




THE MODE, 1812. 



232 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

and magistrates wore wooden shoes. Now the citizens emu- 
lated the times of the Regency in the extravagance, if not in 
the elegance of their costumes. The most popular entertain- 
ments were the bals a victime. To be admitted to these, one 
must have lost a relative by the guillotine. The dancers wore 
crape about the arm, and gayly danced in honor of the de- 
ceased. It became the fashion to show the profoundest ab- 
horrence of the Reign of Terror. Instead of Robespierre's 
tappedurs, " head-crackers," young muscadines, or dandies, in 
swallow-tailed coats, with their hair plaited at the temples 
and flowing behind in military fashion, made it a duty to knock 
down any shag-coated Jacobin they chanced to encounter. 
The ladies, too, expressed their horror of the bloody time in a 
fashion of their own. The Jacobins had made a virtue of de- 
stroying life ; the production of life must be the grand virtue 
under the new state of things. Hence, in 1794, it was noticed 
that every fashionable citoyenne was either really or apparent- 
ly far advanced in maternity. 

The "Merveilleuse^' of the same year, by the capacity of her 
bonnet and the slimness of her skirts, will recall a fashion 
which undoubtedly some of my readers thought " extremely 
elegant" in its day, but which would now be likely to consign 
its wearer to a mad hospital. 

The male specimen of this species was scarcely less re- 
markable in his choice of attire ; while the ^^Agioteor^^ — a po- 
litical bully, a blackguard, on a par, in principles and practice, 
with some of his kindred who disgrace our republic — wore a 
costume which, like the stripes of a hyena, distinguished him 
at once from the more respectable citizen. 

The attempt, under the auspices of David, to revive the 
classical toga, and to model the fashions for the ladies after 
the costumes of Aspasia and Agrippina, met with but transient 
success, owing to the severity of the climate, which was par- 



i 




THE "MERVEILLEUSE," 1793 



"merveilleux," 1793. 



234 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



ticularly unfavorable 
to bare throats and 
legs, and transparent 
muslin. Besides, none 
but those whom na- 
ture had plenteously 
clothed with charms 
could with complacen- 
cy thus dispense with 
dress. Coughs, rheu- 
matisms, and ridicule 
soon extinguished all 
classical ardor among 
these few, tho' num- 
bers of the fashionable 
wom.en of the period 
were willing to sacri- 
fice both modesty and 
health in their desire 
to carry back the civ- 
Wx= ilization of the world 
two thousand years, 
when silk was worth 
its weight in gold, and 
cotton an unknown 
thing. While the fash- 
ion lasted, its want of 
adaptation to the cli- 
mate gave rise to some 
ludicrous scenes. Thus, at the famous " Feast of Pikes," 
when all Paris was gathered in the open air, a sudden storm 
of rain came down. The thin muslins with which the fe- 
males had attired themselves, " like the women of the free 




l'agioteor," 1795. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 235 




"classical COSTUME," 1796. 

people of antiquity," were soaked through in a moment, and 
clung closely around their wearers, so that, as the dry chron- 
icler remarks, " the shape was clearly discernible." " Titus" 
and " Alcibiades" would have been more than human to have 
refrained from laughing at the spectacle presented by the be- 
draggled " Clorinda" and " Aspasia." The coup de grace was 
given to the classical fashion by the appearance of a favorite 
actress in the character of a Chinese girl. Her costume 
would hardly have been recognized in Peldn ; but, such as it 



236 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

was, it struck the fancy of the town ; and the Parisiennes 
loaded themselves with frills and ruffs, fancying that they 
were habited a la Chmoise. 

The classical party were divided into Romans and Athe- 
nians, whose simplicity of attire gave rise to another sect in 
the world of fashion called " Incroy ablest'* They protested 
against the invasion of antiquity by an opposite extreme in 
dress ; so that, what between superfluity of coat collar, cra- 
vat, and hatj it was difficult to see that they had any head 
at all. 

At this epoch, the confusion, or, more properly speaking, 
medley of fashions — in which every extreme and incongruity 
was represented — was at its height. Each taste and political 
sentiment wantoned in its own masquerade. The liberty of 
dressing as one pleased for once reigned triumphant. The 
Jacobins reveled in dirt and dishabille ; the classical scholars 
in nude simplicity ; the fops in perukes, powdered heads, 
three-cornered hats, and hair cut a la Titus ; the ladies as sim- 
ple country girls, with bonnets a la hutterjly ; robes a la Cy- 
bele ; chemises a la Carthaginoise ; in short, a la any thing 
their caprices or ingenuity could devise. Each one strove 
after originality ; and a more extraordinary crowd than that 
of the streets and salons of Paris under the Consulate the 
world will never again see. It was fashion run crazy. The 
world of " ton" were more like the inmates of a madhouse 
than the rulers of society. Madame Tallien — the beauty of the 
day — wore transparent costumes, in imitation of the Olympian 
gods. Her stockings were flesh-colored, and divided at the 
toes, on which she carried rings and jewels. Her friend Jo- 
sephine — afterward Empress — was her rival in fashion. Fem- 
inine whims did not stop even at this degree of immodesty, 
but went to such lengths as I shall not undertake to describe. 
Suffice it to say that dresses " a la sauvage'''' became in 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 237 




''iNCROYABLE," 1796. 



vogue, while the pictures and ornaments openly displayed 
would have scandalized even the Roman world, and been 
thought not quite " the thing" in Sodom 

I shall run hastily over the intervening space between thrv+ 



238 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



era and our own, depending mainly upon illustrations to show 
by what changes of cut and gradations in taste our present 
costumes have been formed, and how Paris — having for a 
while rioted in every species of extravagance that a depraved 
and licentious taste could conceive — has at last quietly and in- 
disputably assumed the supreme rank 
in the world of fashion. From being 
the butt of mankind for her grossness 
of garments, she has become the arbi- 
ter of civilization as to what it shall 
wear and how it shall live. Not a ri- 
val disputes her sway 

As the Revolution receded, so 
luxury augmented. At the com- 
mencement of tlie present century 
dross had simplified wonderfully, 
and the v/orst features of previous 
absurdities had disappeared, al- 
though it would not be quite safe 
for man or woman to walk the 
streets in our day in the attire of 
that. The grand passion, after the 
Egyptian expedition, was for India 
shawls, pearls, diamonds, and lace 
of the highest price. 
Men rivaled women in 
their desires for these 
luxuries. The debts 
of Josephine for her 
toilet in a short time 
amounted to one mill- 
ion two hundred thou- 
sand francs. She had fromenade costume, isoi. 




PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



239 



ordered thirty-eight new bonnets in one month ; the feathers 
alone cost eighteen hundred francs. With such an example, 
the court followed so rapidly in the path of extravagance, that 
even j^apoleon was scandalized, although he had said to his 
wife, " Josephine, I wish that you shall astonish by the beauty 
and richness of your dress," 



following up the precept 
with action one day, when 
she was not clad with suffi- 
cient elegance to satisfy 
him, by throwing the con- 
tents of his ink-stand upon 
her costly robe. Josephine 
owned one hundred and fif- 
ty Cashmere shawls of re- 
markable beauty and great 
price. She offered Madame 
Murat fourteen thousand 
francs for one that pleased 
her. 

Judging from the past, 
nothing admits of greater 
variety of form than the 
modern bonnet, while its 
rival — the male hat — is re- 
stricted to the slightest pos- 
sible variation of its pipe 
shape. Now, the fashion- 
able ladies wear their bon- 
nets merely suspended from 
the back of their heads, like 
the outer leaf of an opening 
rose-bud. Then — in 1801 




BONNET, 1801. 



240 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



— they oveihung the forehead, much after the manner of a 

candle-extinguisher. 

In 1812, the modern hat had assumed the general shape 

which it has, unfor- 
tunately, ever since 
maintained, and with 
which it seems likely 
to make the tour of 
the globe. The ladies 
have at times made 
various assaults upon 
it, and even attempt- 
ed to take possession 
of it themselves — a 
conquest which, luck- 
ily for the influence 
of their charms, they 
never wholly accom- 
plished. He would 
be a benefactor to 
the human race who 
could invent a suita- 
ble covering for the 
head which should 
utterly annihilate the 
present source of dis' 
comfort and ugliness 
which surmounts the 
front of him made in 
the image of God 

In 1828, the leg-of- 
mutton sleeve, which 
CRAVAT "A oREiLLEs PE LiEVHE," 1812. dcscendcd lu its full 




PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



241 



amplitude to the pres- 
ent generation, was in 
full vogue ; also, the 
low necks and backs, 
which have ever re- 
tained their populari- 
ty, by a strange sort of 
anomaly, els full dress ; 
while short petticoats 
— which are so con- 
venient — have been 
lengthened into unti- 
dy skirts that save the 
street - cleaners half 
their trouble. 

I have brought to- 
gether, in one tableau, 
the four raiost remark- 
able types of dress 
that have swayed the 
fashionable world for 
the past century. The 
striking changes de- 
picted therein are in- 
dicative of what we 
may look for in the fu- 
ture. With so plastic 
a many-colored mate- 
rial as dress, there can 
be no limits to the va- 
rieties of costume. 




LEG-OI-'-MUTTOJi SLhtNi,, Ib'Si). 



CHAPTER XI. 

A PEEP INTO A MONSTER NURSERY, AVITH A GLIMPSE AT THE 

NURSES. 

I HAVE elsewhere spoken somewhat of the " principles'- of 
the hospital for foundlings in Paris, which is a type of the 
numerous establishments of the same character to be seen 
throughout Roman Catholic Europe ; but as yet I have not 
crossed their thresholds, to give my readers a " sight" within. 
To Protestant eyes they form so extraordinary a spectacle that 
it is worth our while to take a peep, if but to see how so mon- 
strous a nursery is managed by its good parent, the state. Be 
not startled, nervous celibate ; the whinings and cries from 
five thousand baby lungs shall not reach your ears, nor the 
" sights" of the necessities of half a myriad of " disgusting 
young ones" salute your eyes. Each one of the "precious lit- 
tle souls" shall be as clean and quiet as if slumbering sweetly 
in the arms of a doting mamma, so that your bachelor sensibili- 
ties need fear no sudden shock ; and if you have any idea of 
matrimony still lingering about your — I will not say impene- 
trable heart, but susceptible head — do not be discouraged by 
the appearance of so many cradles, for under no circumstances 
need you provide for an " expected" family on so extensive a 
scale. Besides, matrimony had no more to do with the cre- 
ation of most of these creatures than with the apples in your 
orchard. All that they can ever know about their previous 
origin is much of the same character as Topsey's knowledge 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 243 

of her infantile career. They never had any father or moth- 
er — " they growed" — a term about as explicit as the Mosaic 
account of the creation of the firmament. Poor things ! 
clothed alike, fed alike, nursed alike, taught alike, and spanked 
alike, they look more like the result of some mysterious in- 
vention, by which population, by scores, is turned out of a 
newly-patented machine, not yet fully perfected, for the bene- 
fit of the government, whose wants of human material could 
not brook the slow, natural mode of manufacture of immortal 
souls, and therefore offered a reward for the discovery of some 
more wholesale process. 

At all events, the babies, without regard to any deficiency 
in their ancestral trees, are all gathered together here, as will 
be seen by looking into one of their sleeping apartments, where 
the results of the philanthropic care of the state, in acknowl- 
edging all bastards as its own, is palpably manifest. This 
national charity commenced in 1552, and has had its arms full, 
in increasing ratio, ever since. Indeed, the relation between 
parent and child, among a not over-scrupulous class of our 
brethren and sisters by Adam, as well as any faith in the old- 
fangled doctrine of matrimony, seems to be quite exploded. 
They beget, and, like some birds that we read of, drop their 
young, to take their chance, into the nearest nest, at the same 
time dropping all farther thought in the matter, until another 
accident induces a repetition of their infantile contribution to 
the state crib. This, to be sure, is better than strangling the 
unfortunates, though a goodly proportion soon after become 
strangled by the joint operation of the natural feebleness of 
an anonymous existence, and the hard rearing of mercenary 
nurses, to whom they are presented in the country, as a spe- 
cies of scape-goats for the sins of their foster-families in par- 
ticular, and society in general. Those who escape this more 
fortunate fate are, sooner or later, choked by the miseries of 



244 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



actual life, to which their introduction is about as good a prep- 
aration as a hot bath for a plunge into a March tide. 

The poor infant, after being taken in at the hospital, either 
as picked up abandoned in the street, or more humanely pass- 
ed through the re- 
volving box, called 
the "tour," which 
is so conveniently 
contrived " to re- 
ceive and no ques- 
tions asked," is as 
heartily welcomed 
and cared for as 
can in reason be 
expected by wom- 
en doomed by their 
faith never to awa- 
ken within them- 
selves the mater- 
nal instinct. With 
what mingled feel- 
ings of compassion 
and dread they 
must each day ap- 
proach that cradle 
which never re- 
ceives its baby- 
charge but once ! 
It always reminds 
me of those nondescript monsters with which our faithful 
nurses were wont to tingle our juvenile ears with horror, 
and to cause our little hearts to beat too quickly for sleep 
through the long, long, first hours of night, at the climax. 




THE ''TOUR." 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 245 



" how they swallowed children at one mouthful." Then, too, 
there is in human nature an instinctive dislike to hear other 
people's children cry — our own never do — and we have no 
patience with the little wretches, that should be strangled if 
"they won't stop their noise." I doubt if old-maid nature is 
much more charitable than old-bachelor nature in this respect. 
Added to this is the natural horror and vexation that fills the 
heart upon receiving hourly evidence that parents will deny 
their own ofispring, and thus abuse the charity of the merciful. 
Perhaps, too, there is some little curiosity to see what the 
next turn of the " tour" will turn out. Will the lottery that 
never gives a blank yield a prize? We all like " sweetly- - 
dressed children," " clean as a new rose," and all that sort of 
thing, provided they chirrup and look happy, as if they knew 
their mammas, papas, and all their friends individually at six 
weeks old. The veriest old curmudgeon is flattered by such 
a recognition, and smiles because he can't help it. What, 
then, must be the excitement among the poor nuns when 
such a babe turns up, with a whole wardrobe of fine linen, 
and some jewel by which it shall at some future time be 
identified ! What curiosity to know whose it can be, with 
clothes upon its delicate limbs fine enough for the first-born 
of a duchess, and perhaps a mysterious note, saying that the 
infant is not a mere waif upon the shores of charity, but 
simply a loan of flesh and blood, to be called for in due time, 
with the accumulated interest of proper care and education ! 
Will the poor sisters love this one more than the next, a snub- 
nosed, squalling, red-skinned twelve-pounder, scantily covered 
with a dirty rag, and showing animal fierceness and strong 
opposition in its first hours ? I wot not. These sentiments 
are the secrets of individual hearts. Sufficient for us to know 
that all are received with equal tenderness, numbered, and, 
when put out to nurse, ticketed by a collar upon the neck, or 



246 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

with rings in the ears sealed by the administration of the hos- 
pital. Wherever the child goes, it is stamped as illegitimate 
and the property of the hospital. This is not the most prom- 
ising introduction to the world, though the necessity of some 
distinguishing: token is obvious. 

By a singular contradiction in French law, after providing 
every facility for the abandonment of these infants, it punishes 
those who are guilty of this crime by imprisonment. Even 
fifteen years at hard labor has been the sentence in one case, 
while in another but three months' confinement, showing evi- 
dently that the French judges are puzzled to reconcile the 
temptation of the law on the one hand with its severity on 
the other. 

There have been established recently in France asylums for 
children, somewhat upon the plan of our infant schools. Their 
object is in some degree primary instruction, but chiefly to 
afford suitable care, during the day, to the young children of 
poor parents, compelled to leave their homes for their daily 
subsistence. The government allows them annually three 
hundred thousand francs from, the public budget of instruction. 
Private benevolence supplies the remainder. Their tendency 
is to prevent the causes which, among the destitute, lead to 
the abandonment of their infants, by providing them with a 
home during those hours when their parents are compelled to 
desert them. The parents are required to send them with 
clean face and hands, unbroken garments, and their food for 
the day. Upon arrival, an inspection takes place, to see 
whether these conditions have been fulfilled. They are 
taught music and other lessons suitable to their years, but no 
exercise is allowed to continue over ten minutes, for fear of 
fatio-ue. Relijxious education is attended to, and in no case is 
corporal punishment allowed. For the sleepy a bed is pro- 
vided. There are about thirty of these asylums in Paris, re- 



248 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ceiving annually nearly ten thousand infants, from the ages of 
two to seven years. 

The " creches modeles,^^ or public cribs of Paris, bid fair to do 
much to counteract the evil tendencies of the foundling hos- 
pitals. The home of every child should be the family ; but 
as many families are incapable of providing a home, and more, 
from vice, furnish only a school of evil, it is well for society 
that it should provide an asylum for one and the means of 
escape for the other ; consequently, for the children of house- 
holds like those of the destitute and vicious of Paris, these 
model nurseries are a special providence. The mother pays 
two cents a day for the use of a cradle, and engages either to 
nurse her child herself or provide its food. The children have 
every facility allotted them for their amiisement and instruc- 
tion, so far as their tender years admit. They can be depos- 
ited as early as half past five o'clock in the morning, and re- 
main until eight o'clock in the evening. The cradles are all 
uniform in make, clean, and even tasteful in their arrange- 
ments. Each day a physician calls to assure himself of the 
health qf these diurnal orphans, and to see that all proper san- 
itary regulations are enforced. Sisters of charity have gen- 
eral charge of the establishments, under the care of the lady 
managers of the infant asylums. Mothers applying for admit- 
tance for their babes must justify their poverty or necessity 
for going out to daily labor. 

It requires a certain education of nurses, independent of all 
parental or benevolent volition, to endure with complacency 
the noise of the children of an ordinary family let loose for 
fun and frolic. What, then, must be the juvenile uproar in one 
of these establishra.ents, where each infant is encouraged to use 
its French tongue, with any accompaniment of toy or instru- 
ment it may chance to possess, at its own discretion ! How- 
ever, it is a children's paradise, and they are right to use their 




L2 



250 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

tiny lungs in joyous uproar. Just look in upon the play-hall, 
and see if these sprouts of poverty have not cause to be en- 
vied by the twigs of many rich households ! They are as 
merry as larks, and as happy as innocence and kind care cani 
make them. 

The suckling department is quieter, for the infants in gen- 
eral sleep the day through. If they awake, a faint cry an- 
nounces some simple want, which provided for, they go off to 
sleep again. I dare not say so much for the next room, which 
contains those who have attained the mature age of between 
twelve and twenty-four months, and are supposed to require 
something more substantial in the way of diet than maternal 
milk. The beds are models of grace and neatness in their 
way ; they are intended for the " naps" which that condition 
of infancy requires, occupying, to the comfort of their nurses, 
some hours of the day. When not thus peacefully employed, 
they are engaged in feasting, and the clatter of metallic spoons 
upon the firm wood of their table announces either that 
their sufficiency is satisfied, or, like little Oliver, they wish for 
" more." Of course, their standard of education is not as yet 
very elevated, being limited to some simple devotions and at- 
tempts at vocal harmony or uniformity of noise, by way of di- 
versifying the medley of sounds. 

Paris possesses twenty-four of these philanthropic mangers, 
the utility of which, when rightly conducted, for the classes for 
which they are intended, can not be exaggerated. They cost 
nearly eighty-five thousand francs per annum, of which the 
poor parents contribute some nineteen thousand. 

Connected in some degree with the institutions we have 
mentioned is the class of nurses, of which the Parisian type is 
remarkable for its jocund proportions and coarse features. 
They are required to possess certificates from the mayors of 
their respective villages that they are married women of good 



252 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



report. In general, they are too ready to neglect their own 
ofispring for the sake of the pittance to be gained as a private 
or public nurse. By a policy at first sight not very promising, 
they seek engagements in their v^'orst apparel, believing that 
the parents whose necessities require their services will not 
allow them long to suckle their infants in their own ragged 
and filthy clothes. This speculation of poverty generally 
turns to their advantage, and they are enabled to return to 
their country homes reclad at the expense of their employers, 
to await the birth of a new infant, which shall give them. 




THK TA^I-E, 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 253 

again the coveted opportunity of going to Paris on a similar 
adventure. 

There are regular offices for nurses, vi^here they remain 
waiting engagements. Fifty or more, with their babies, while 
seeking employment, are shut up in small, dirty chambers, 
where neither light nor air is abundant. Their food, too, dur- 
ing this probation, owing to their parsimony, is of the mean- 
est description, consisting of soups at two sous the porrin- 
ger, wine at three sous the bottle, with other aliment at sim- 
ilar prices. A more vulgar and mercenary race of females 
than that to which, by the false customs of French parents, 
their infants are intrusted during the most susceptible period 
of their lives, it would be difficult for the world elsewhere to 
produce, excepting, perhaps, the female managers of these bu- 
reaus, who, perhaps, have secured their positions and clientage 
from being formerly of the shrewdest and most mercenary of 
the race themselves. It requires the eloquence of a new Jean 
Jacques Rousseau to re-awaken Parisian mothers once more to 
the duty and pleasure of fulfilling the natural laws of mater- 
nity, and preserving their offspring from the tender mercies of 
these harpies. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE WIDOWS OF THE DEVIL. 
{Partly from the French of Eugene Guinot.) 

A DROLL title, without doubt, but none the less true, gentle 
reader mine, as you will soon perceive. I do not mean either 
those widows who, before they were such, afiect to think all 
husbands devils, and after they become so, seek to persuade 
the world, by the depth of their mourning and the eloquence 
of epitaphs, that their departed lords were saints, when indeed, 
if the truth were known, they were simply martyrs ; but I do 
mean another class of women common every where, and play- 
ing the very deuce with sons and husbands out of pure taste 
for deviltry. Who, then, can be so correctly called " widows 
of the devil" as those who, bestowing themselves upon no flesh 
and blood husbands, early join themselves in wedlock to a 
master that allows them a few days' revelry at the expense of 
never-endino; sorrow? If their mischief were confined to their 
own reckless selves, we might remonstrate, pity, and weep ; 
but as it extends through all circles, one resource to arrest its 
progress is to daguerreotype a few of its phases, not only as a 
warning to the " widows" themselves to beware in the outset 
how they give ear to the proposals of the Evil One, but to any 
son of woman how he gives ear to them. 

As Paris is the city in which their brief triumph is the most 
complete, and their fall, owing to its graduated scale of morals, 
the slowest and least hopeless, I select it as the scene of my 
pictures ; for what is true in that paradise of fools becomes 
doublv true elsewhere. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. ' 255 



In seeing pass before you those beautiful butterflies — those 
seductive females who attach themselves to society only by its 
lien of flowers — at once lovely and frail, do you not ever ask 
yourself whither go they, and what will one day become of 
them ? Leaving to others domestic felicity and regular hab- 
its, quiet virtues and hidden vices, they sport upon the wings 
of chance without check, without regard to appearance, show- 
ing Avith equal frankness all that they have of good and all that 
they do of evil. Their sole mission is joy for the moment ; 
not that inward joy that springs from a good conscience, but 
that sensuous happiness which forgets all deeper and truer 
emotion in finding its caprices met, and its physical frivolities 
and grosser passions gratified. 

If there be any happiness whose essence is solely of earth, 
it is theirs. Any element of a purer and more spiritual na- 
ture would be as unwelcome to them as a skeleton at a least. 
To feel, and not to think, is their creed -, the body, and not the 
spirit, is their principle. While they remain young and full 
of health, their life flows on easily and gladsome. They find 
time only to float on the breath of a fantasy or the sea of 
pleasure, whose soft murmurs at once invite and caress them. 
The thought of a to-morrow never crosses the path of to-day. 
Each hour gives birth to new schemes of pleasure — new sacri- 
fices of their future for the joy of the present. The exhausted 
hero of one love disappears but to be replaced by the fuller 
purse or more comely person of another. Thus they pass on, 
faithless to others, faithless to their own souls, deriding, in 
their dream of youth, all that is serious and good, and faithful 
only to their fickle loves, their transient pleasures, their de- 
basing luxuries, their empty worldliness, and all the vanities 
which fill and rule the head and heart of a female devotee of 
amusement. 

Solomon admits that there is a time to dance : but one should 



256 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 



not dance unless one knows when and how to stop. On some 
fine day, youth begins to fade. A gray hair, a wrinkle, or a 
twinge, not of conscience, but of body, announce its coming 
adieu. Like the worm -hole in the ripe fruit, they tell of hid- 
den decay with exaggerated meaning. Hardly, however, is 
the discovery made, before all the graces and comeliness on 
which pleasure reposed find their premature draught on decay 
and decrepitude promptly honored. Then, when youth and 
beauty have passed away, when the transitory loves and their 
golden showers have likewise disappeared, what becomes of 
those females who live but to please or be pleased through the 
medium of the senses, and who, in living thus, expend both 
their revenues and capital ? 

Let two retired gentlemen of the world, of a certain age, 
say from fifty to sixty years, who are seated in the Tuileries 
garden, explain to us the enigma. They have been convers- 
ing over the events of their youth, and naturally have fallen 
into a philosophical mood ; for there were many circumstances 
in the lives of both, though in a difierent way, which led them 
to be serious. 

" What becomes of them," asked the elder, but best pre- 
served of the two — " of those queens dethroned by time, and 
where can I find them ? Tell me, for you should know." 

" I know nothing about it," replied his companion, with a 
somewhat testy tone, as if the question brought back some 
memories which he would feign have drowned in Lethe. "I* 
know absolutely nothing about it, my dear Eugene ; why do 
you ask such a question ?" 

Both remained silent for a few minutes, when the younger 
again spoke. 

" Forgive me, Eugene, I spoke too hastily. I will do pen- 
ance by recounting a history which will answer your question 
perfectly, though the follies of one's youth — I should say 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 257 

more honestly the vices — are not the most agreeable reminis- 
cences for one's age. 

" You have always been, as I see you now, a grave, quiet 
man, and a stranger to those passions which beget folly and 
regret. I, on the contrary, have had a youth full of activity 
and adventure. Soon after quitting college, my uncle died, 
leaving me rich enough to follow my own tastes. I bade 
adieu to the country, and came to Paris, where I found Rob- 
ert, my old classmate of Saint Barbe. There was that like- 
ness between us that made our friendship solid and sure, and 
yet sufficient difference of wit and character to keep it ever 
fresh and pleasant. "We were both free, full of health, well 
formed, well educated as the world goes, and with plenty of 
the sinews of pleasure in the shape of current coin. What 
was there, then, to prevent our success in the field of fashion 
of Paris 1 

"Absolutely nothing but our own modesty, and that soon 
vanished. Our debuts were signalized by numerous successes, 
for youth, fortune, beauty, leisure, and the inclination to taste 
the forbidden fruit, command nowhere a higher premium than 
at Paris. 

" Nothing resisted us — at all events, long. It is true that we 
attacked only those citadels that armed themselves but to pro- 
voke assault. In the career of agreeable and easy adventures, 
Robert, I must confess, excelled me greatly. I soon learned to 
consider him my master. He was a veritable hero of pleas- 
ure ; irresistible in attack, superb in triumph. He was known 
every where under the soubriquet of ' The Devil,' on account 
of his prowess. The polite and frivolous world in which we 
lived called him ' Robert le Diable,' and it was not without 
an emotion of joy that he one day found that Scribe and 
Meyerbeer had made him the hero of their celebrated opera 
of that name. We ran on thus for twenty years, thoughtlessly 



258 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

and wicked, as you may believe, and might have done no bet- 
ter to this day, had not Providence interposed sundry infirm- 
ities, the distaste of satiety, or incapacity, to restore us to our 
sober senses. One or all combined helped to mend our mor- 
als. Robert owned, at sixty leagues from Paris, the estate of 
Margillac, a beautiful spot, with delightful gardens, a fine 
park, and picturesque environs. It was there that we both 
retired to recruit our exhausted energies, and gracefully termi- 
nate our career. We had good books, good wines, and laugh- 
able souvenirs ; for, although our strength had waned, our 
tastes remained pretty much as when we first commenced 
'life.' Plow many pleasant hours we passed in resuscitating 
the Past ! Robert had one fixed idea. He constantly figured 
to himself that all the women he once had loved raised to him 
a perpetual altar in their hearts. It was under the impulse 
of this flattering belief that he made his will last winter, 
when attacked with an illness that finally closed his eyes. 
' My dear Oscar,' said he to me, ' I make you my executor. I 
leave you the estate of Margillac ; the rest of my property goes 
to my nephews, except the sum of one hundred thousand 
francs, which I charge you with distributing among my " wid- 
ows." ' He thus called the frail partners of his tender pas- 
sions, so that, as you perceive, they were doubly the widows 
of the devil. 

" ' Among those unfortunate women who contributed so 
much to my career of folly,' he went on to say, ' there are ten 
that I wish particularly remembered. Here are their names 
written in this album : Athenais, Colombe, Antonia, Susanne, 
Flora, Olympe, Armide, Arthemise, and Rosalba. You have 
known them all, and you will find at the end of their names 
all the details which my memory can at present gather. I 
wish to leave to each of these females a memorial of my 
friendship, and to recompense them, for the last time, for the 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 259 

love they have had for me, and the souvenirs which they have 
preserved of me. To each of them I formerly gave my por- 
trait : the legacy is to be distributed among those w^ho have 
preserved this image, and can show it to you. If any are 
dead, or if some have forgotten me or lost my portrait, then 
their portion is to revert to the others. Such is, my dear Os- 
car, the business that devolves upon you. I am sure you will 
fulfill it conscientiously ; but, as I do not wish to abuse your 
zeal and devotion, I require only three months of researches ; 
after that the money is to revert to my heirs.' 

" Two days after giving me these instructions, Robert died. 
Faithful to the promise I made him, and furnished with the 
one hundred thousand francs, I came to Paris to seek the leg- 
atees. For three weeks I have sought every where, without 
finding a trace of one of those females. Judge, then, how 
apropos, and yet how annoying, was your question. It is 
twenty years since I put foot in Paris, and I find myself in an 
unknown land. I lose myself daily, and, to tell the truth, I do 
not know to whom to address myself to learn where I can find 
a single one of those women that poor Robert flattered him- 
self still remember him." 

At this moment, M. Oscar Palemon having finished speak- 
ing, a withered, wrinkled, and black hand extended itself to- 
ward him. It was the ragged and hag-like letter of chairs, 
who came to demand the two sous her due. 

" Will you have some change, my dear Palemon ?" said Eu- 
gene Benoit. 

" Monsieur Palemon," repeated the old crone ; " that is a 
name I have heard before." 

" No doubt, good woman," with a disdainful smile, replied 
the testamentary executor of Robert. 

" Eh ! eh !" continued the old woman, " he would not have 
had cause to blush before you, my fine sir. He was a some- 



260 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

body in his time, and he must have been som.ething more than 
a dandy who was flattered with the particular acquaintance 
of Bosalba Delorme." 

"What! can you be she? Then I have found one!" ex- 
claimed Monsieur Palemon. " You, then, are Rosalba De- 
lorme, that pretty little blonde ?" 

" Yes, sir, I was a blonde, unfortunately ; for the blondes 
last a less time than the brunettes. If I had been a brunette, I 
should have lasted three or four years longer, and not have been 
reduced as you see me. I am now seeking my fortune where 
I have lost my beauty. I had decided to economize against 
old age, and there was a kinsman who had promised to make 
me rich on his return from St. Petersburg, where he had gone 
to receive a legacy ; but, when he returned, it was no longer 
so : I was faded, although but twenty-nine. The brunettes 
hold good to thirty and upward. Ah ! why was not I born a 
brunette !" The old woman would have gone on intermina- 
bly in regretting her beauty and not her follies, had not Pale- 
mon interrupted her. 

" So you recall my name, and I remember you as well as 
if I had seen you only yesterday. We were not much ac- 
quainted either. It was more through one of m.y friends, who 
knew you well, and whom you can not have forgotten — Ilob- 
ert, called the Devil." 

" Robert the Devil — that is a play." 

" Yes, but it was also a handsome young man who adored 
you, and you no less him." 

" It is quite possible. I have a confused idea ; but there 
were so many, that, to remember them all, one must have the 
memory of an angel." 

" Robert gave you his portrait." 

" Ah ! I have had so many portraits ; but now there is not 
one left. When one finds herself in distress, as you can con- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 261 



ceive, they go very quickly to the pawnbroker's. Mine went, 
with my jewels and dresses, one after another. But you 
make me talk, and during this time there goes off a gentleman 
who has not paid me for his chair." 

She hobbled in pursuit of the delinquent, while M. Pale'- 
mon got up, exclaiming, 

" Let us go ; the commencement of my researches is not 
very auspicious. Look ! already one name erased from my list, 
and ten thousand francs to divide among the other legatees 
of Robert." 

An hour after this rencounter, M. Palemon, on going home, 
found a letter which contained the following invitation : 

" Madame the Baroness of Firbach requests M.Oscar Pale- 
mon to do her the honor to visit her on the evening of the 30th 
of April." 

" Who is this baroness 1 Where did she know me ? On 
what account am I invited 1 Why is it that she sends me an 
invitation only this morning for this evening? Generally they 
are sent several days in advance. A baroness should know 
the usages of society better. But never mind ; I have come 
to Paris to fulfill a duty, and perhaps at the baroness's I shall 
meet some elegant of my date who can put me upon the track 
of those I seek." 

M. Palemon, at nine o'clock, complied with the invitation. 
The house looked mean ; the staircase was badly lighted ; the 
apartment, although large, was smoky and in disorder. The 
furniture dated from the Empire ; the curtains were spoiled, 
and the gilding had lost its brilliancy. In an antechamber, a 
servant in blue livery, stained with oil, opened the door of the 
saloon, and announced, in a cracked voice, M.Pale'mon. 

Four groups were seated around four gambling-tables. A 
lady of not less than middle age, tall, and with an imposing 
air, approached M.- Palemon, and thanked him for having ac- 



263 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

cepted her invitation. She then took him by the arm, con- 
ducted him to a recess near a window, made him take a seat, 
and said to him, with the kindest manner imaginable, 

" I receive only gentlemen of fashion and pretty women. I 
thought that my saloon would be agreeable to you, if, as I sup- 
pose, you have preserved your old tastes and habits." 

" How is this, Madame ?" replied Palemon, astonished ; " have 
I, then, had the honor formerly of your acquaintance ?" 

" Certainly ; and I am charmed to find your name upon the 
list of the new arrivals at Paris." 

" Indeed ! I did not know that such a list was published." 

" They do not publish it ; I obtained it privately." 

" And you, then, had the goodness to recollect me ?" 

" Yes, surely. You have one of those names that one does 
not soon forget, and which necessarily strike one, when again 
heard." 

" Very flattering this, Madame the Baroness," replied M. 
Palemon, who thought himself obliged to rise and salute her 
for this compliment ; "but," added he, " I ought to confess that 
my memory is less happy, and I am the more confused as well 
as surprised, for, without speaking of the graces of your per- 
son, you have also one of those names which command the 
memory." 

" It is, perhaps, because I have not always borne this name," 
said the baroness, laughing. " Do you not remember Olympe 
Dujardin ?" 

" Ah!" exclaimed M. Palemon, " a lucky day ! Your name 
is written upon my tablets, Madame, and you are one of the 
persons that I desire the most to see in visiting Paris. I am 
enchanted to find you in a brilliant and aristocratic position. 
A marriagre, without doubt ? You well merit that ! But how 
is it that I did not recognize you at once ? You are not changed 
in the least," 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 263 



*• You find, then — " replied the baroness, affectedly ; " yes, 
they do say I am still passable. It is not every woman that 
can say that at my age. Hold ! you remember the little An- 
tonia, who had formerly some reputation in the world, and 
who knew so well how to ruin the English?" 

*' Antonia ! why she is on my list." 

" There she is ; that enormous lady in a blue hat, seated 
near the chimney. Now she is called Madame Outremer. 
The young person at her side is her niece. I will present 
you." 

Madame Outremer gave M. Palemon a warm reception. " I 
love my old friends," said she ; " my niece does also. She is 
pretty, and well brought up, and delights in the society of ma- 
ture men. We are delighted to receive you." 

M. Palemon led the conversation toward Robert. At first 
neither the baroness nor Madame Outremer recollected him ; 
but, by force of associations, the memory of the two ladies 
gradually awakened. Neither, however, had preserved the 
precious portrait. 

Just then the door of the saloon was opened. An agent of 
the police, followed by his guards, entered, and placed senti- 
nels so as to prevent the escape of any one. The cards were 
seized in the name of the law, and each of the players were 
obliged to give their names to await a civil process. This 
scene did not pass without lively expostulations. The baroness 
was furious. 

" I know from whom has come this blow," said she to M. 
Pale'mon, who was thunderstruck at the denouement : " I 
have been denounced by a woman who was my rival for- 
merly, and is now my enemy, and who has come to live in 
this house, to be the better able to spy me. TI..cy have rightly 
told me that she was in the pay of the police, and I was weak 
not to believe them. Oh ! I will unmask her now, and all the 



264 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

world shall know that Arthemise MuUer is a spy — a vile in- 
former." 

" Arthemise MuUer ! Still another one of those that 1 seek," 
said M.Palemon, 

The proces-verbal being finished, the guests of the baroness 
Lad permission to retire, with the prospect of appearing as 
witnesses in a trial before the police court. 

Moved by a scene which had finished a day so full of meet- 
ings, M. Palemon went home with a headache. To distract 
his mind, he sent to a library for a new novel. 

It was a dirty octavo, which had been thumbed by thou- 
sands of fingers ; one of those books that the women of the 
world, delicate and distinguished, admit to their firesides aft- 
er they have passed through the garret, antechamber, porter's 
lodge, barracks, and divers other localities equally unfashion- 
able ; for, at Paris, no one buys books — ^they hire them. All 
classes of society are inscribed upon the registers of circulating 
libraries. The same volume goes from the grisette to the 
countess, from the valet to the dandy, and so on. M. Pale- 
mon opened the book and commenced reading, but the first 
pages were so stupid that they set him to gaping. He was 
about to close the volume, when, by chance, he saw his own 
name heading a chapter thus : " Where the reader will make 
acquaintance with a new personage, M. Oscar Palemon." 

Was it by chance that the author had used these two names ? 
Let us see. Not at all; it is a true portrait. The Palemon of 
the romance is one who led a rakish life at Paris twenty years 
since, and, that there should be no doubt as to his identity, the 
author has complacently described his figure, habits, and char- 
acter, and has placed him in an historical intrigue, of which 
the mysterious details have not yet been noised abroad. Who, 
then, could be the romancer who knew M. Palemon so well, 
and his most private adventures ? The author was a woman, 
nnd her name was Madame EoiifjivaL 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 265 



M. Paleraon consulted his excellent memory, but it was in 
vain that he ran over every name of his past or present ac- 
quaintance. He could find no clew in his own reminiscences. 

"It is necessary that I trace this mystery out," said he to 
himself, " and perhaps to make a complaint to the procureur 
of the Emperor, for it can not be permitted surely to print, 
without permission, the life of an honest man, and to make him 
the hero of a romance." 

Saying this, M. Palemon grasped his hat, threw on his cloak, 
called a coach, and drove in great haste to the publisher of the 
novel, who gave him, without hesitation, the address of the au- 
thor. 

A quarter of an hour after, he was mounting the narrow and 
dirty staircase which led to the sixth story of a house in the 
Faubourg St. Denis. He rang three times, and waited some 
ten minutes before the door of the apartment was opened. 
He then found himself in the presence of a woman of fifty 
years of age, fat and short, of a smoky tint, enveloped in an old 
merino dressing-gown, and her disordered hair crowned with 
a turban of red-checked silk, somewhat after the fashion of 
an African washerwoman. 

" Madame Bougival, if you please ?" 

" At your service, sir." 

There was no mistaking the woman of letters. Her right 
hand, which held the door half closed, was deeply marked 
with ink, while to answer her visitor she had been obliged to 
take a pen from her mouth, which she placed behind her ear. 

" Enter, sir," said Madame Bougival, " and excuse me if I 
make you wait ; but I have just commenced a sentence, and 
I wish to finish it before I lose the idea. Not that way, sir ; 
that's the kitchen : this door, I beg of you ; enter my study." 

This study served at the same time for a saloon, dining- 
room, and bed-chamber. The bed was half hid behind a torn 



266 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

curtain. The principal article of furniture was an immense 
table, covered with all sorts of articles pell-mell, such as 
books, paper, corsets, ink-stand, a bottle of wine, a comb, 
glasses, pens, petticoats, plates, and a chaos of manuscript and 
notes 

" I beg you to be seated, sir," said the woman of letters, at 
the same moment giving the example by plunging herself into 
a vast arm-chair before her desk. 

M. Palemon desired nothing better than to gain a little 
time, but the three chairs which constituted the stock of sit- 
ting-furniture were already occupied ; the first by a cat, the 
second by the fragments of a salad, and the third by a pair of 
stockings and a hair-brush. 

Madame Bougival observed his embarrassment, and said to 
the cat, " Get down, Silvio ; make room for the gentleman." 

Silvio rose slowly up, lazily stretched herself, and then 
jumped from the chair on to the table, walked and purred a 
while amid the general chaos, and finally made a bed of her 
mistress's corsets. 

" Now that you are seated, sir," continued the blue-stock- 
ing, " will you inform m.e what has procured me the honor of 
this interview?" 

" Madame, I am here on account of a romance." 

" Monsieur is a publisher ?" 

"Ko, Madame." 

" An editor, perhaps ?" 

" No more This is the fact : I have read your romance." 

" Which ?" 

" That which is called ' Nights and Festivities.'" 

" It is one of my best." 

*' In this romance there is a character — " 

" There are thirty-two, sir, and all well drawn, as I dare to 
say. The characters are a little spread out, and the events in 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 267 

the lives of each given with particular detail — all true, sir, too. 
Some of the catastrophes would make you shed every tear in. 
your body, if you have two ounces of sensibility." 

" Yes, yes. I render homage to the merits of your work ; 
but the character of whom I wish particularly to speak to you 
is called Oscar Palemon." 

" Ah ! what a laughable chap — droll as Punch — an amiable 
vagabond. Do you use this, sir?" added the lady, pushing to- 
ward her visitor a large snuff-box of black horn, from which 
she had just taken a copious pinch of tobacco. 

" Willingly, Madame, I thank you. But let us return, if you 
please, to this Oscar Palemon." 

" The character strikes you — is it not so ? There is great 
truth in it. I drew it after nature. That man lived, and I 
knew him." 

"I believe it. He still lives." 

" Do you know him ?" 

" Very well indeed — it is myself." 

" Indeed ! Is that true ? Are you the little Oscar ? Miner- 
va ! it can't be, "What a pity ! What a scamp is this Time, to 
so derange us ! But, on looking more closely, I recognize 
something of you ; and in me do you see nothing familiar ? 
When I knew you they called me Athenais Babichard." 

" What ! Athenais, the queen of our balls and of our sup- 
pers, the never-tiring, graceful dancer, the joyous carouser, 
who could swallow so lightly three bottles of Chamipagne at a 
sitting ?" 

" She is before your eyes. But those festive nights are pass- 
ed. Now I have adopted temperance and incognito. I am 
Madame Bougival, a writer of romances, of manners, and of 
books of education for young children." 

M. Palemon did not again allude to the suppers. Athenais 
Babichard a woman of letters I It was indeed droll, but not 



268 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

altogether new. We have had several of the same species 
before. 

" But," objected M. Palemon, " since you have deigned to 
preserve for me a place in your memoir, you have still more 
reason to preserve the memory of Robert and his likeness." 

" Robert," replied the literary female ; " where do you fmd 
this Robert ?" 

Here, as every where else, the souvenir was effaced, and the 
portrait lost. 

A few days after, M, Palemon had another rencounter. He 
went to the theatre. In retiring, he talked with the woman 
who waited upon the boxes and gave him his coat. What 
was his surprise when he recognized in this poor decrepit be- 
ing an actress once celebrated for her beauty and her wit ! 

It was Susannah, the old actress of the Yarietes — Susannah, 
who had always worn such rich dresses, and who excelled in 
comedy — Susannah, the idol of the side scenes and the pas- 
sion of the orchestra. No other actress had contributed more 
than she to the fortune of the theatre. Her salary had been 
a thousand crowns, which she did not receive, but, on the con- 
trary, she willingly paid for the privilege to show herself upon 
the stage. Each month her fines for non-attendance were not 
less than five or six hundred francs, which those who had 
caused her to miss the rehearsal or play gladly paid. But 
Susannah faded, and she passed from among the actresses to 
the figurantes, and finally was but too happy to be allowed to 
remain about the theatre in the humble situation in which 
Palemon had found her. 

Susannah neither remembered Robert nor his portrait. The 
memory of Arthemise Muller, the police spy, was equally frail. 
Thus six names were successively erased from his list. 

It occurred to M. Palemon that the most beautiful, most op- 
ulent, and most loved of the widows of Robert was Mademoi- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES 269 

selle Colombe, who, in her days of splendor, lived in a mag- 
nificent apartment in the Rue de Provence. He hastened 
there and inquired, 

" Have you here a young person called Mademoiselle Co- 
lombe ? When I say young, I ,mean — no, it was twenty-five 
years since. I forget: excuse me. She occupied the en- 
tresol." 

" In the entresol," replied the porter, " we have M.Roland, 
the oldest lodger in the house. He has lived there for twen- 
ty years," 

" Perhaps this gentleman can give me some information." 

M. Palemon hurried up the staircase, knocked, and found M. 
Roland at home. When he had explained the object of his 
visit, he replied, 

" Ah ! sir, you recall a very agreeable souvenir. Yes, truly, 
I replaced in this apartment a very amiable person, who spoke 
often of her. She had become poor — that is to say, her rev- 
enues had fallen off', and she was obliged to sell her furniture 
and give up this apartment. She resigned herself to her losses 
with so much grace that I was touched. I went to see her 
several times in her new lodgings — quite humble, I can assure 
you — in the Rue Montmartre ; but it is many years since I 
have seen her. You say that she is to receive a legacy. I 
heartily hope you will find her, as she must be greatly in need." 

M. Palemon took the number of her lodgings from M. Ro- 
land, and hastened to the Rue Montmartre. There he found, 
not the woman he sought, but a reminiscence of her in the 
memory of the venerable porter. 

" She was a good girl, sir ; always laughing, although it 
was not always that she had cause ; liberal in her gifts, 
though her purse was often empty. She stopped here just 
five years ; then she left because the proprietor seized her 
furniture for the six months' rent due him." 



270 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

With some farther instructions, M. Palemon pursued his 
search. He traced her to a wretched habitation in one of the 
vilest parts of the city, where she had remained three years. 
Thence his clew led him to a filthy garret in a still worse 
house, near to the corn-market. At the end of a foul and ob- 
scure entry there was a dilapidated door, to be seen only by 
the light of heaven through a hole in the roof. Upon this 
door was written, 

" Madame Pigoche, magician." 

M. Palemon knocked. The door, half closed, opened to the 
slight force he used, and he found himself in the presence of 
an old crone, buried, rather than clothed, in the fragments of 
theatrical garments, to which age had lent an overpowering 
odor. 

Never had the art of Mademoiselle Lenormand been exer- 
cised in a lodging so miserable and by so ragged a sorceress. 

" Does Monsieur wish that I shall tell his fortune ?" asked 
the old woman, with a grave air. 

" No, Madame,! have not come to consult your cards." 

" What, then, do you wish ?" 

" It is in regard to a Mademoiselle Colombe whom I am 
very desirous to find." 

"Colombe!" exclaimed the sybil, with emotion; "you ask 
for poor Colombe?" 

" Yes, Madame ; does she not lodge here ?" 

" She sleeps in the cemetery, sir." 

"Dead?" 

" A long time ago. She died here, on this spot where you 
are. It astonishes you, does it not, that a woman, after hav- 
ing been so brilliant, so rich, so petted, should end her days in 
such a hole ? Yes, it is your thought ; I see it in your eyes. 
You can hide nothing from me. I read the past as well as the 
future. You knew Colombe when she was young and beau- 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 271 

tiful. She then inhabited an apartment furnished like the 
palace of a queen. She owned diamonds, horses, and car- 
riages. She threw away money by handfuls. You knew all 
that, and you can not understand how she could come here to 
die. It is, nevertheless, the history of more than one. And 
I, also, such as you now see me, I have lived in the same way ; 
I have been as young, pretty, rich, and brilliant as Colombe." 

" You are her sister, perhaps ?" 

"No, sir, I was only her friend — her best friend. Ah!" 
she said, drawing a deep sigh, more in regret at the pleasures 
passed than in penitence, " how many follies have we enjoyed 
together ! It was the good time then. We were but twenty 
years old, as says the song. But, unfortunately, this could not 
last always. Troubles came, and then age ; every thing 
changes with us poor women, who live only on what Nature 
has lent us. The commencement is always sweet, but the end 
bitter. At first, lovers follow us ; later, they wait for us ; and 
then we must go and seek them. Such was the history of this 
poor Colombe. "When she was wholly abandoned, and mis- 
ery overwhelmed her, she became crazed, and put an end to 
herself." 

" A suicide !" cried M. Palemon, struck with horror. 

" Yes, sir, with four sous' worth of charcoal — her last four 
sous, three of which she borrowed of me, without telling me 
what she wished to do — the poor creature ! It was necessary 
to break down the door in the presence of a police agent. 
They found her there stifi- — dead. I can still see her. In or- 
der to burn the charcoal, she made use of this furnace, which 
I have preserved, and upon which I make my coffee every 
morning in memory of her." 

" Poor Colombe ! No one, then, took pity upon thy dis- 
tress ?" 

," And whom would you have succor her ? Her old lovers, 



272 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

perhaps ? Indeed ! Men, you see, are all — ^but you are one, 
and I stop. Men, while they are in love, are stupid dwarfs, 
who have nothing in them ; geese, that one can pluck at will. 
But when the fit is passed, they are callous, with hearts like 
stone. They forget all that has been done for them, and leave 
us to die of hunger without bestowing upon us the charity of 
a sous. Colombe more than once spoke to her old friends 
who swam in opulence. All refused the smallest pittance. 
I was so poor myself that I could not aid her." 

" And her sister, that I saw so beautiful and triumphant, 
what has become of her?" 

" Flora ? Do not speak of her ; she has been still more mis- 
erable. When time stole her charms, she took up trading in 
articles of toilette. Her business was with women of fashion, 
who, like ourselves, had led a life of gallantry, but, unlike our- 
selves, had possessed hypocrisy enough to preserve their rep- 
utation. The male world does not bid them adieu because 
they are rich, and thus they contrive to divide their hours be- 
tween intrigues, lace, finery, and all else that goes to repair 
the ravages of time on flesh. But this business is not all 
profit or pleasure. Such patrons give more promises than 
money. Victimized by numerous failures, Flora, to save her- 
self, was tempted to dishonesty. A Cashmere shawl had 
been intrusted to her for sale. She sold it, and kept the 
money. The police condemned her to six years' imprison- 
ment. After this there was no more business for her. On 
leaving prison. Flora, without resources, lost, faded, fell lower 
than ever. She lived a vagabond life, and finished by associat- 
ing with a criminal by profession. Caught in robbery, she 
was again brought before the court, and condemned to seven 
years' hard labor, and to be exposed on a scaffold. Yes, I have 
seen my unhappy friend tied to a gallows — she whom I have 
so often seen so brilliant in her carriage and her box at the 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 273 

Opera, attended by those fine gentlemen who to-day are peers 
of France. Heaven had pity on her at the end of a year, and 
sent her a disease which soon took her off." 

" All this is very sad," said M. Palemon, who had many rea- 
sons for feeling melancholy as he recalled his career and those 
of these unhappy girls. " But you, Madame, who were the 
friend of these sisters, what is your name ?" 

" Now, as you read upon my door, I am called Madame 
Pigoche, the name of the only man that I ever loved. For- 
merly I was called Rosine de Lelicour ; that was more poet- 
ical—" 

" Rosine Lelicour! You are on my list," said M. Palemon, 
opening his pocket-book. 

" It is possible," tranquilly replied the sybil. 

" Do you remember me ?" 

" No, sir, I do not ; but that is no offense. You have not 
recognized me ; and if I am changed, on your side you have 
not, I judge, the pretension to be the same as you were in 
your spring-time." 

" It does not concern me, but a friend called Robert." 

" I do not remember that name either, which is not aston- 
ishing, so many names have passed through my head. Ah 
me ! Yes, and so many bank-notes have passed through my 
hands, and now not one remains, alas ! If one could keep 
what they gained, Colombe and Flora would have lived, and 
we should have been fine ladies to-day, as we were all three 
great sinners in our youth. If you knew us, you will recollect, 
perhaps, that we were always together, and they called us the 
three graces. You see, now, what is left." 

" There is something which can aid you to recall Robert." 

" What is it ? Tell me, if you please." 

" His portrait, which he gave you." 

" He gave me, then, his portrait, the poor, dear man ? Very 

M 2 



274 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

well ; I have not kept it, nor any thing else. All went, in 
turn, to the pawnbroker's. Now I have no faces, except 
those upon my cards, which gain for me something in my de- 
cay. Come, sir, give me something, and we will know your 
fortune. We have talked enough ahout the past ; let us talk 
some of the future." 

" No, Madame, no ; you have told me all I wished to know ; 
but it is just that I should pay you the same as if you had told 
my fate." 

M. Palemon drew from his purse a gold coin, which he put 
into the hand of the sybil. It was a long while since she had 
seen so m.uch, and her face glistened with joy as she made 
her acknowledgments. 

" This proof shall be the last," said M. Palemon, as he left 
the fortune-teller. " There still remains one widow, but it is 
useless to seek her." 

The three months had expired. He had done all possible 
to fulfill the wishes of Robert. His conscience would now 
permit him to return to Margillac, and restore to the nephew 
of his friend the hundred thousand francs which had failed to 
reach their first destination. 

While he was preparing to depart, a neighbor of Margillac 
wrote to him to request that he would take charge, on his re- 
turn, of a roll of papers which would be given to him by M. 
Rondin, living at the Batignolles. M. Palemon took an om- 
nibus and found the house. 

" Monsieur is out," said the servant, " but you can speak to 
Madame." 

M. Palemon caused himself to be announced, and entered 
the saloon, where he found the wife of M. Rondin and her 
daughter, a charming girl of sixteen. The old bachelor made 
his most graceful bow ; then, approaching Madame Rondin, he 
uttered a cry of surprise and emotion. 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 275 

"What is the matter, sir?" asked the lady, astonished at 
the effect she produced. 

" Nothing, Madame, nothing. I will explain ; but it would 
be better that we were alone," said he, glancing at the young 
lady. 

" Leave us, Caroline," said Madame Rondin. 

When Caroline had left, she said, " JNTow, sir, explain ; what 
is the cause of your emotion ?" 

" What have you there upon your breast ?" 

" This medallion ?" 

" Yes, that portrait, which is that of my friend Robert, is 
it not — Jules Edward Florestan Robert, called the Devil ?" 

It was, indeed, the portrait so long sought. M. Palemon 
had before him the tenth of the names upon his tablet. 

Madame Rondin told him. how, after numerous adventures, 
she had made an honorable end by marrying M. Rondin. 
" My husband knows nothing of my former life, and I count 
upon your discretion," said she, as she finished her tale. 

An hour after this scene, M. Palemon dined with Mr., Mrs., 
and Miss Rondin. 

" This is an old friend of my brother's," said the wife, " and 
Caroline is a witness of the emotion with which he recalled 
the likeness of my poor Charles, who died so young." 

" You have plenty of others," said the good M. Rondin, 
laughing. " My wife has a mania for portraits. She possesses 
three uncles, four brothers, and five cousins in bracelets, 
brooches, and upon snuff'-boxes." 

M. Palemon could not listen to this conversation. He was 
looking attentively at the face of the young girl opposite him. 
Caroline was both modest and pretty. She had just left school, 
and had been well taught. After dinner, she played and sang 
with good taste. Her voice was sweet and strong. The old 
bachelor was in ecstasies, and, when he bade adieu to the fam- 



276 PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 

ily at eleven o'clock that evening, he promised to call again 
the next day. 

Notwithstanding the impression upon his heart, he was not 
prevented from making sundry philosophical reflections upon 
the discovery of that day. 

" Behold, then," said he, " what has become of the widows 
of the Devil ! I have found one, by chance, who has reform- 
ed and married. The others are chair-letters, door-openers at 
theatres, spies, fortune-tellers, gamblers or worse, writers of 
infamous literature, or they have plunged into crime, and died 
in prison or by EulciJe. And for how much of this are we 
men responsible ? "Without the temptation oiour money ^ might 
not all have lived and died honest women 1 I see it all : they 
are our toys, then our victims ; then we despise, and seek — 
others. The same routine of wickedness, to pile up remorse 
and infirmities for our latter days. I will paint my experi- 
ence ; perhaps it may warn one of either sex in season. 

" Is it not strange," added he, " that of all these women, the 
only one who preserved the souvenirs and the portraits of her 
admirers is precisely she who has redeemed herself in the 
esteem of the world, and now occupies an honorable position, 
with the title of wife and mother ?" 

M. Palemon then thought of Caroline. The next day he 
returned to the Batignolles. He visited there daily, and 
thought no more of quitting Paris. He had explained to Mad- 
ame Rondin the legacy of Robert. " These one hundred thou- 
sand francs are yours by right," said he. 

" Yes ; but how can I take them ? By what title can I ac- 
cept them? What motive can I give to my husband ?" 

"There is a way to arrange all," replied Oscar Palemon. 
" Give me the hand of your charming daughter. I will marry 
her without a dowry, and bestow upon her the money of Rob- 
ert by marriage contract." 



i 



PARISIAN SIGHTS AND FRENCH PRINCIPLES. 277 



Madame Rondin could refuse nothing to M. Palemon. M. 
Uondin never denied any favor to his wife. Besides, the 
hundred thousand francs were not without some weight in rec- 
ommending M. Palemon for a son-in-law. 

The young girl was sacrificed. Her sixteen summers were 
united by law to the sixty winters of M. Palemon, The re- 
sult, doubtless, was neither worse nor better than other mar- 
riages of the same sort. 



THE END, 



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